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PH FALLS 

IN ENGLISH 

A MANUAL OF 

CUSTOMARY ERRORS 

IN THt USE OF WORDS 

BY 

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Pitfalls in English 


A MANUAL OF 

CUSTOMARY ERRORS 

IN THE USE OF WORDS 


BY 

JOSEPH FITZGERALD 


NEW YORK; 

J. FITZGERALD & CO. 
28 Lafayette Place, 


( i- w/ 

c<y/ & 




PE~ 14 (oC> 


.Fs 


Co 



Copyright 1895, by J. Fitzgerald 

£ - ^7. 

<- / D ^ 


/^> - * ? 


PREFATORY NOTE. 


THOUGH this little book will speak for itself, 
it is n^ unreasonable demand that its author shall 
offer some proof of his competence to perform the 
task he has undertaken. 

For quite forty years etymological and lin 
guistic study has been for him work and play, 
his life’s occupation and his amusement. More 
than twenty years he has spent in editorial labor 
on the North American Review, the Forum, and 
other publications, and besides has translated 
many works from foreign languages — German, 
French, Italian, Greek, Latin; mostly scientific 
works, and several of them treatises on 
psychology, the just rendering of which into Eng- 
lish requires no common degree of exactness in 
the use of words. During the first four years of 
the Forum he revised in the manuscript every 
article but three published in that periodical, 
and alone bore the responsibility for their gram- 
matical and stylistic redaction. 

Hence this little volume is the work of no tiro, 


IV. 


PREFATORY NOTE. 


amateur, or closet student of our English, but of 
one who has had to meet and, perforce, to solve 
as many of the problems of language expression 
as are likely to be encountered and tackled by any 
scholar in a lifetime. The topics are mainly such 
as have arisen in the author’s experience as editor, 
redactor, and translator; thus they have the char- 
acters of actuality and pertinency. 

The author’s purpose in preparing this manual 
will not be attained unless after perusing it the 
reader shall be able to say that he has been put in 
possession of principles of etymology that safe- 
guard him not only against the Pitfalls in English 
here charted, but against many similar perils 
which infest the whole field of our language. Or 
changing the figure, the author as physician at- 
tacks not so much symptoms as the diathesis, 
the vice of constitution which manifests itself in 
solecisms. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY. 

A. Importance of Etymological Knowl- 

edge 7 

B. English and German Vocabularies 

Compared 13 

SECTION II. IGN ORANTISMS 17 

SECTION III. MISCELLANEOUS PHRASES. . 48 

SECTION IY. SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 

A. Some Points of Syntax and the Laws 

of Expression 57 

B. Foreign Words in English 74 

SECTION V. DERIVATION AND TRANS- 
FORMATION 87 

SECTION VI. FALSE LIGHTS 113 




PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY. 

A. — IMPORTAN CE OF ETYMOLOGICAL KNOWL- 
EDGE. 

i. SOME languages are homogeneous, others 
heterogeneous, the homogeneous being such as 
comprise a larger or smaller number of root words 
or radicals native in them, and of derivatives and 
compound words formed from those roots; the 
heterogeneous on the other hand being those 
whose roots are of diverse origin, a portion of 
them native, the rest, which may be an equal or a 
larger portion, being taken from one or many 
other sources. Of the first class the German 
language is an example, but such also is the Greek 
and such the Latin: of the second class the best 
example is the English. With exception of an in- 
considerable number of radicals borrowed from 
extrane languages, as Latin, Greek, and other 
tongues, the German vocabulary is absolutely 
7 


8 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


pure and homogeneous; and were the foreign 
radicals to be thrown out the native resources of 
the German language are easily sufficient to pro- 
vide adequate substitutes. English rests on a 
basis of Anglosaxon etymons and its syntax is of 
native origin ; but the words of its vocabulary arc 
very largely of a different origin, coming mainly 
from the Latin either direct or through the Nor- 
man French. That does not mean that of the 
words used in discourse one-half or any such large 
proportion would be of Latin-French origin; for 
the words of relation (prepositions, conjunctions) 
and other necessary parts of the language’s ma- 
chinery being of home origin, the native elements 
necessarily have the chief role to play when the 
language is in action. 

2. Of the 250 words in the foregoing paragraph 
many are repeated several times, hence 250 is not 
the number of different words in it. Of different 
words, each counted once only, and such words 
as French, Latin, etc., not reckoned, there are 
about 83: of these about 35 are of Anglosaxon or 
Germanic origin, and about 48 come from Latin, 
French, etc. Of the 250 words and repetitions of 
words 145 are Anglosaxon or Germanic. 

3. These thirty-five words of Germanic origin 
are more homely to us than the forty-eight: we 
understand and speak Are, Other, Being, Such, 


\ 


IMPORTANCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 9 

Small, With, Word, long before the meaning of 
Language, Consist, Radical, Native, Derivative, 
Compound, dawns on our intelligence. In a 
homogeneous language all the words are of the 
order of Are, Speak, Tongue, Be, With, Word. 
It is seen that the acquisition of words and word 
meanings must be incomparably easier in homo- 
geneous than in heterogeneous tongues. The 
comparative ease or difficulty of acquiring the 
vocabulary of English or German, respectively, 
will be the subject-matter of a few paragraphs in 
the second part of this section: a consideration 
that finds apt place here is the much more logical 
and orderly growth and development of a homo- 
geneous language as regards, not acquisition of 
new words by the learner, but acquisition of new 
meanings by words. 

4. In German all the elements are of domestic 
origin and the precise meaning of each, whether 
singly or in sesquipedalian compounds, is under- 
stood as well by peasant as by philosopher. 
Hence in German no one will venture to inject 
into a word a new meaning which its elements 
will not bear. In English the etymological value 
of roots, whether Anglosaxon on Latin, is known 
and determined, but in most cases for the learned 
alone : hence when new meanings attach to words 
no one but the learned is competent to say 


10 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


whether the acquisition of meanings is legitimate 
or not. The line of derivation of German words 
is seen in each word: the deflections or the de- 
velopments in meaning can also be seen in the 
words themselves. In Buch (book) the German 
sees Buche (the Beech, the bark of which once 
served for paper), and such a word as Buchsucht 
(craze for books, bibliomania) needs for him no in- 
terpreter. The pedigree of every legitimately 
coined English word is also plainly inscribed on 
its front, but it is not writ in English, and it needs 
interpretation to make it understood by those who 
are not acquainted with the antecedents in other 
languages. 

5. In no other language, of the civilized world 
at least, is this interpretation so necessary as in 
our English. It is not so necessary in French, 
for the French has preserved the tradition of the 
Latin etymologies, and of the Latin syntax in 
some degree. Latin once was a living language 
in France, never in England, or if in a few Roman 
colonies and garrison towns in Britain Latin was 
spoken from the time of Julius Caesar to the com- 
ing of the Anglosaxons, that barbarian invasion 
swept away all trace of it, so that when Augustin 
appeared all memory of Roman domination had 
faded away. When a Latinish tongue came in 
with the Norman conquerors its vocabulary was 


IMPORTANCE OF ETYMOLOGY. 


11 


by degrees appropriated by the whole population, 
but the vocabulary only: the syntax and the ety- 
mological tradition never took root in England, 
and hence the Norman French words, however 
allied among themselves, and however self-inter- 
preting to those who had the etymological tra- 
dition, were virtually for the Saxon people of 
England unrelated and independent radicals : con- 
sequently those words took on new meanings that 
often had no justification in etymology, and 
grammatical anarchy and chaos prevailed. This 
is as true of the Anglosaxon as of the Norman 
French elements of the English language: the 
invasion of the Normans threw the Anglosaxon 
etymological system into confusion. 

6. Nevertheless only by tracing our words 
back to their original forms and uses can we give 
ourselves a rational account of their import. It 
is not asserted that so only are we enabled to 
employ our English words with propriety, for 
some of the best models of pure and proper Eng- 
lish are the writings of men acquainted with no 
language but the Mothertongue. Is it useless 
then to acquire knowledge of the etymology of 
our English, seeing that such knowledge is not 
necessary for the highest mastery of its resources 
of forceful expression? Not any more useless 
than it is for a person to put himself under an in- 


12 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


structor in the art of playing a musical instru- 
ment, though some very remarkable performers 
have been easily self-taught or even have acquired 
the art apparently without study or effort. Some 
there are who, though they have dug every word 
root of our language out of the soil in which it 
first grew, cannot write a sentence of passably 
good English. But it does not follow that there- 
fore a knowledge of etymologies is useless. For 
perhaps the majority of learners the easiest and 
the only way of getting at the- true signification of 
words is through their etymo’ogha! history. 

7. So much for etymological study as a means. 
As an end the study of English etymologies is 
quite as profitable and as honorable a pursuit and 
as worthy of strenuous effort as the study of en- 
tomology, to say the least. But one is not dis- 
posed to content oneself with saying the least. 
Language is a principal department of the Science 
of Man. Needless to say that without language 
there cannot be any science of man or of anything 3 
it is not quite so needless to say that without pro- 
found study of speech our Science of Man will 
be left in a very imperfect state indeed. Speech 
is inseparably bound up with thought, so that 
without words thought is impossible and incon- 
ceivable. While we study these etymological 
monuments of our language therefore we are 


GERMAN AND ENGLISH VOCABULARIES. 13 

prosecuting a strictly scientific investigation, un- 
less indeed in our researches we spurn the 
methods of scientific inquiry. 

B. ENGLISH AND GERMAN VOCABULARIES 
COMPARED. 

8. IN a very authoritative work on the Russian 
people, their manners, morals, and characteristics, 
it is gravely affirmed that Russians may any day 
be heard disputing about such propositions as 
that At the North Pole there is sempiternal ice, 
that A stone let drop from the hand will fall to 
earth. That latter proposition of course might 
be demonstrated on the spot experimentally; but 
the Russian nature prefers to decide all questions 
on high metaphysical grounds and experiment 
has no place in that field. The story is more 
than half true told of ourselves. Who has not 
heard the question discussed, taking part him- 
self perhaps, whether English is easier or harder 
to learn than some other language, for instance 
German? The Russian moozhiks and shop- 
keepers are still thrashing the straw of controv- 
ersies settled for the rest of mankind a thousand 
years ago and capable of determination now, even 
by themselves, as quick as saying Presto! Our 


14 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


own debate on the relative easiness or difficulty of 
English and German is also carried on over a 
matter decided just ’about a thousand years ago 
and capable of being decided again to the satis- 
faction of the least-instructed person, if we will 
but make a very simple experiment. 

9. The question of easiness or difficulty has re- 
gard to the vocabularies of the two languages, at 
least that is the view of the disputants in the ever- 
lasting debate. That language is easiest whose 
vocabulary is acquired in least time. Now apply 
the test. Here is the title of a work in German: 
“Menschenhass und Reue,” that is, Misanthropy 
and Repentance. Speak to any German-speak- 
ing child of four years the words Menschenhass 
and Reue, and most positively he will understand 
what is meant by the first word, and almost as 
certainly what is meant by the second. Pro- 
nounce the two words Misanthropy and Repent- 
ance in the hearing of an English-speaking child 
of four years, and if he understands their mean- 
ing you have something little short of miraculous. 
Why so? Because the German child already 
possesses the elements of the word Menschen- 
hass, namely Mensch (human being) and Hass 
(hate), and in all probability he knows the mean- 
ing of Reue (of the same origin as the Eng. 
verb to rue, noun ruth). Mensch, Hass, Reue 


GERMAN AND ENGLISH VOCABULARIES. 15 

the child learns as he learns Mama, Papa, 
Bread : but the elements of the word Misanthropy 
are not given to one in ten thousand English- 
speaking persons either in babyhood, youth or 
age: there is nothing English in it, nor is there 
anything English in the word Repentance. 

io. Really the problem is solved by that simple 
experiment; further proof is only repetition. But 
pursue the experiment a little way ; though super- 
fluous it will perhaps be instructive and enter- 
taining. The infant child of German parents 
early learns the meaning of the word Haus 
(house), and knowing so much has no difficulty in 
understanding the signification of the derivative 
words Haeuslich (domestic), Hausfriede (do- 
mestic peace, Friede, peace), and a host of other 
derivatives and compounds. But the infant learn- 
ing to speak English, in order to get as many 
terms as his little German coequal, must in addi- 
tion to the word House understand the. meaning 
of the adjective Domestic. Whoever knows the 
two German words Hand and Schrift (hand and 
writing) is at no loss to understand Handschrift. 
But though the Anglic child understands Hand 
and Writing he finds in that no help to the under- 
standing of Manuscript. Such a big word as In- 
dependent is readily intelligible to a German child 
(Unabhaengig) ; the German child that would re~ 


Jti PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

quire to be taught the meaning of Unabhaengig 
would be an exceptionally stupid one; the Anglic 
child of four or five years who should grasp un- 
taught the meaning of Independent would be a 
prodigy. Even the notion expressed in English 
by the word Obsolescent would be easy of com- 
prehension to a German child: the word Ver- 
aelternd needs no interpretation, it is impossible 
to express the notion in a simpler form; no 
synonym, no phrase, could make it plainer. The 
most ignorant German peasant necessarily under- 
stands untaught the German word for Immor- 
tality (unsterblichkeit), Inviolability (unverletz- 
barkeit), Philanthropic (menschenfreundlich), 
Philology (sprachkunde), and so on. Not less 
great is the advantage enjoyed by the speaker of 
German in the using of words. The wholly un- 
taught and unletterd German peasant, if the idea 
(not the word) of Philology were given him, 
would at once name it as correctly as any scholar. 
What English-speaking man of even considerable 
education could do as much? 

ii. From these examples — and they are typical 
— one may reasonably conclude that the master- 
ing of the English vocabulary is at the very low- 
est estimate twice as difficult as the mastering of 
the German. Another obvious conclusion is that 
a defining dictionary is far less necessary to Ger- 
man than to English-speaking people. 


SECTION II. IGNORANTISMS. 


12. IN dictionaries Ignorantism is given as a 
synonym of Obscurantism and as meaning a sys- 
tem of ecclesiastical or governmental paternalism 
designed to keep the common people in the con- 
tentment of ignorance. Here it will be used to 
denote a solecism committed bv one who is sup- 
posed to be or affects to be well educated. In the 
list of Ignorantisms here following are entered 
some forms of expression that have established 
themselves in “good use”, for example, Diatribe, 
Empiric. Such words and phrases are cited here 
only as examples of successful pretenders holding 
their places in the language not by merit but 
through prescription. Their titles are bad, but 
the tribunal of usage has passed upon them and 
recognized them, and it is vain to call them in 
question now. Ignorantism is the great corrupter 
of language, and in no language does it work so 
much mischief as in our English, for in no other 
language are the prime meanings of vocables so 


18 PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

obscured as in ours. Our dictionaries are to a 
great extent simply registers of Ignorantisms, and 
by registration Ignorantisms get a colorable title 
to a place among legitimate words and phrases. 
But whether they have in their favor prescription 
or only this registration, no man of acute literary 
sense and conscience will receive with cordiality 
phrases that have stood in the pillory and been 
branded Interloper, though they may pass among 
the unknowing for grandees. Many phrases that 
might rightfully find a place in this section will 
be found in Section III. 

13. Conservative is a word that is absurdly 
misused by newspaper writers and in conversa- 
tion. “Pigs’ feet is ruz awful, a conservative esti- 
mate is three cents apiece by the joblot.” Wher- 
ever Conservative is used in any sense but that of 
preserving or tending to preserve from waste, loss, 
injury, degeneration, deterioration, decay, or the 
like, it is used solecistically, ignorantly, slangily. 

14. Phenomenon. The man who first used 
this word and its derivate Phenomenal in the 
sense of Something very remarkable or unusual, 
gave a palmary example of a Vulgar Error. In 
philosophy and in science Phenomenon means 
only Appearance; or, in its largest sense, that which 
is cognizable by the senses. One can hardly be 
in error in tracing the perverted meaning of Phe- 


IGNOR ANTISMS 


19 


nomenon to the lecture hall in which the man of 
science or the popularizer of physical science 
would announce beforehand one of his experi- 
ments by saying: “The Phenomenon you are now 
to witness,” etc.; and as the ignorant (though, of 
course, “educated”) audience would the next mo- 
ment see some striking effect of mixture of chemi- 
cals, or some miracle of electricity, they would 
naturally suppose that Phenomenon meant “scien- 
tific miracle.” Some reputable authors have in- 
advertently employed the terms in this vulgar 
sense : but that must never avail to consecrate the 
Ignorantism. 

15. Teem (v.) means to bring forth young as 
an animal or fruit as a plant; to be prolific; to be 
full-stocked. But the chief manager of a great 
trunkline of railroad speaks of the line “teeming 
with trains.” 

16. Wage (v.) One nation wages or carries on 
a war against another, and war may be Waged, 
but it is an Ignorantism to say The war wages. 
Etymologically, to Wage is to put at hazard, to 
bet, to wager, hence, to take chances, as with war, 
to venture a war, finally it means to carry on war. 
The word is of the same origin as Wage or 
Wages, and Gage is its double, g being substi- 
tuted for w, as in Guarantee, Warranty. 

17. Attract, Attraction. What is the rationale 


20 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


of the use of Attract in such a phrase as He was 
attracted to the position by the desire to study 
humanity, or Attracted to the support of the meas- 
ure by the belief that, etc.? We do not say that 
a steamboat is attracted to a point forward in her 
course by her engines; she is propelled. In the 
phrase above, the desire to study humanity is an 
impelling or propelling force, not an attractive. 
The force of attraction we figure to ourselves as 
residing in the body to which another body is at- 
tracted or pulled, e. g., in the loadstone to which 
iron filings are attracted. In short, Attraction is 
Pulling not Fushing, and the form of phrase given 
above is illegitimate, and not to be used what- 
ever “authority” may be quoted for it. 

1 8 . Venerable is commonly misused as synony- 
mous with Aged, so that in sober earnest a 
hoary old villain is spoken of. as Venerable. Ven- 
erable means worthy of reverence and that only. 
It is true that the epithet Venerable, when applied 
to persons, has a sort of subaudition of age: we 
should not characterize as Venerable a man of 
thirty years however worthy of veneration he 
might be for his virtues and grandeur of char- 
acter. A child of five years is a man, as being a 
member of the human race, and may possess a 
masterful intellect; but we should not say of that 
child that he is “a man of high intellectual 
powers.” 


IGN O RjANTTS M S. 


21 


19. Share (v. intrans.) ig properly used only 
when th6 one who shares gets or takes a share in 
something participated in by himself and others. 
But we do not “share” in a conference. We may 
share in a banquet, or in an estate, or in a be- 
quest, but we do not share in a public meeting. 

20. Entail. This verb has a very definite tech- 
nical meaning, and the essence of that meaning is 
the unalterableness for evermore of the di position 
of an estate made by a deed of gift. From that 
meaning of the verb and noun Entail any de- 
parture that does not preserve that root feature 
of unalterableness is illegitimate. It is truly and 
legitimately said that Intemperance entails on 
progeny infirmities and diseases. But it is 
ridiculous to say The glut in the market entails 
on us the necessity of getting rid of our stock of 
wooden nutmegs at three cents a dozen. 

2 1. Co-Respondent. In a suit for divorce 
brought by husband against wife there cannot be 
more than one respondent, the wife. The wife’s 
paramour is not a respondent, not a party to the 
suit at all. This dictum applies to the latitude 
and longitude of New York, yet in the New 
York daily newspapers the paramour of the re- 
spondent in divorce cases is always called Co-Re- 
spondent. 

22. Cyclopedia, Encyclopedia. Between these 


22 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


two forms there is the difference of a syllable in 
pronouncing, printing, or writing; otherwise they 
are one word and are identical in meaning: Cy- 
clopedia is the less correct form. If there can 
be a Cyclopedia of sausage making, the same 
will be an Encyclopedia of that art and mystery. 
It is a Vulgar Error and Ignorantism to discern 
any difference of import between Cyclopedia and 
Encyclopedia. 

23. Excelsior. If one of the ancient Romans 
were to revisit earth, making the descent at New 
York, should he happen to notice the “armorial 
bearings” of New York State, the thing that 
would strike him first would undoubtedly be the 
motto Excelsior. He would probably call it a 
“strange device,” using the very same phrase our 
Longfellow uses in his poem with the strange title. 
Perhaps some of the natives, to enlighten the 
visitor from afarback, would interpret for him 
Longfellow’s poem and so acquaint him with 
the import of that word of “an unknown tongue.” 
But after all was said and done, the Ancient 
probably would still be asking just what that 
“strange device,” that motto in Latin form but 
unintelligible to an Old Roman, might mean. 
For truly, though Excelsior is a Latin word it has 
not the meaning given to it in the poem. The 
bearer of the “banner with the strange device,” 


IGNOR ANTISMS. 


23 


had he known a little bit of Latin, would have 
had “Sursum” for his device, not Excelsior. 

24. Consensus of Opinion. Opinion or Opin- 
ions as equivalent to “the general opinion” seems 
to have gone clean out of use, being superseded by 
the phrase Consensus of Opinion. Consensus 
means agreement in opinions, judgments, etc., 
and hence if the Latin word is to be used it 
would best stand alone. If standing alone Con- 
sensus means agreement in opinions, then the too 
familiar phrase means “agreement in opinions of 
opinion,” not a very neat expression. A slight 
improvement in the current formula might be 
effected by writing Consensus of Opinions: that 
at least would give the indispensable basis for 
“Consensus”, namely, two or more opinions. In 
one opinion there is neither Consensus nor Dis- 
sensus, agreement nor disagreement. 

25. Standing, Estimation,, and words of like 
import are often used improperly in the sense of 
high standing, high estimation. The word 
Esteem, both as noun and verb, and the adjective 
Estimable have acquired the denotation of favor- 
able regard, and that fact undoubtedly indicates a 
tendency of language. But though such ten- 
dency exists and is in some degree inevitable, the 
best usage will withstand it to the last, for it un- 
settles the values of words and impairs the power 


24 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


of inequivocal expression. “Standing” properly 
means, in the metaphorical sense, the place or 
station a man occupies, whether of honor or of 
disgrace. “Estimation” expresses the judgment 
we form of a man, neither flattering nor depreca- 
tive but simply according to fact and evidence. 

26. *Prestigiator. Prestidigitator. Thus are 
these two words printed in a great dictionary. 
Against Prestigiator is set an asterisk as a note 
of obsoleteness, while Prestidigitator passes un- 
challenged, though it is plainly the coinage of 
some mountebank who thought that Prestidigita- 
tion would neatly express sleight of hand (praesto, 
ready, and digiti, fingers). Prestige is from Lat. 
praestigium, and in Warburton (Queen Anne’s 
time) is used to designate jugglery: “the soph- 
isms of infidelity and the Prestiges of imposture.” 
Warburton evidently treated Prestige as an Eng- 
lish word, and would no more have pronounced 
it presteezh than he would have pronounced Ves- 
tige vesteezh. The Lat. praestigium has the 
same sense: trick, sleight of hand. The corre- 
sponding word for a practicer of sleight of hand 
was Praestigiator (feminine, Praestigiatrix), and 
the verb was Praestigior. The business of a 
Praestigiator was Praestigiatio. But now comes 
the charlatan on the stage and at his word Presto! 
the whole suite of good English words, Prestige, 


IONORANTIS1MS. 


25 


Prestigiation, Prestigiate, Prestigiator, Presti- 
giatory (Barrow: “prestigiatory tricks”) slink 
away and twiddling Prestidigitation with its train 
succeeds to their place. The word now common- 
ly pronounced presteezh is the very same that 
Warburton used, but in its new sense of “confi- 
dence-inspiring effect of prior achievement” it 
is got from the French. 

27. Identify. The use of Identified in such a 
phrase as He was identified in mining interests 
with Gould, is an Ignorantism. The proper word 
would be Associated, Connected, or the like. 
Correct usage gives no sanction to the employ- 
ment of Identify in that sense. One may “identify 
himself with the common people” or with the un- 
common people, that is, make himself one of 
them, the same (idem) with them. Two men 
who ply the oars of a boat are as much identified 
in that work as two sharpers who “work” a mine 

1 in company: there is in neither case Identifica- 
tion. 

28. Phalanx means a body of armed men, 
usually an oblong square, in closest order. The 
adjective in the phrase Solid Phalanx is super- 
fluous, for unless the battalion is solid it is no 
Phalanx. The Macedonian Phalanx was a 
square battalion of pikemen, having sixteen men 
in flank and five hundred in front, standing so 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


compact that the pikes of the fifth rank reached 
three feet beyond the front. 

29. The use of Magnate to designate a man 
prominent in exploiting horse-racing, pugilism, 
baseball playing, and the like is slangy. 

30. Balance. It is using the language of the 
shop, pidgin English, and a mere vulgarism to 
employ this word in the sense of Remainder: I 
will send the Balance of the tripe to-morrow. 
When the fishmonger is selling sprats and his 
scales are not in equipoise, he throws in one more 
sprat, and that sprat may without doing violence 
to propriety of language be called the Balance. 
But even a fishmonger might hesitate to call that 
part of an order for sprats which he fills by sup- 
plementary delivery the Balance. 

31. Posted, or Well Posted, in the sense of 
Well Informed, or instructed, learned, or well 
read, is slangy and shoppy, smelling of daybook 
and ledger. 

32. Dead Letter. This phrase doubtless had its 
origin in the contrast between the letter of the 
law, which “killeth,” and the spirit, which “giveth 
life.” In an obsolete law the letter remains, but 
the life and spirit are gone out of it: it is dead. 
The phrase Dead Letter is used in two other 
senses, both entirely different from the foregoing, 
viz.: to denote a letter in the postoffice that can- 


TGNOR ANTISMS. 


27 


not be delivered to the person for whom it was 
intended; and in some printing’ offices to denote 
type ready for distribution. In a sense slightly 
different from that given in the first place above 
a law or regulation that is inoperative is a “dead 
letter.” These are all legitimate uses of the 
phrase, but in the following sentence it is igno- 
rantly used in a sense justified by no analogy: 
The formation of companies is practically a dead 
letter. 

33. Vivid. In a manifesto of a semi-public 
body occurs the phrase Vividly Justify. An im- 
pression on the mind may be vivid, something 
that lives, that does not quickly fade away. Col- 
ors that are bright are rightly qualified as vivid: 
they are alive. A description of a battle may be 
called vivid if it suggests to the imagination the 
actual phases of the combat. In short, vivid 
(Lat. vividus, living, animate) means lively, life- 
like ; and as no one would ever think of saying 
“a lifelike judgment,” so one cannot rightly say 
“a vivid judgment,” nor “vividly justify.” 

34. Secure (v.) is one of the words that are 
overworked. It comes from the Lat. adjective 
Securus, our Eng. adjective Secure, which means 
primarily free from care or anxiety. Hence the 
first meaning of the verb would be to make safe, 
as from danger to life or against theft, etc. Deriv- 


28 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


ative senses are, to make fast so that a thing shall 
not fall from its place ; to make sure, to put beyond 
doubt; to give warrant of the safety of a thing, 
hence to insure; finally, by a process not very 
readily traceable, to get possession, obtain. It is 
in this last sense that the word is overworked. We 
no longer get, obtain, or come into possession of, 
or procure: we always nowadays secure a situa- 
tion, secure a bargain, secure a meal or a theatre 
ticket, nay, even we secure securities. 

35. Hypothesis is a Greek word identical both 
in its composition and meaning with the Lat. word 
Suppositio, whence Eng. Supposition. The hypo 
and the sub (sup) both mean Under and the thesis 
and the positio mean putting or placing. And 
as there is in English no verb derivative of Hy- 
pothesis, except the awkward and 'ill-sounding 
Hypothesize, the verb meaning “to make 
hypothesis,” "to assume hypothetically,” has to 
be got from the Lat. verb Suppono, to suppose, 
or from some other source, as the verb Assume. 
Hypothecate is often ignorantly used as an active- 
verbal form of Hypothesis; but Hypothecate 
means and means only to lay down as a pledge 
or security. 

36. Depreciate, Deprecate. These two words 
give frequent occasion for Partingtonisms, one 
being used instead of the other. An instance 


IGNORANTTSMS. 


29 


occurs while these notes on words are accumu- 
lating. A distinguished man of letters in a com- 
munication to the starchiest of American evening 
newspapers, writes: Much as I depreciate any un- 
necessary delay. What he meant to write, or 
what he should have written, was Deprecate; and 
it is hardly doubtful that his copy had Deprecate, 
made Depreciate by the compositor who set the 
matter in type. But less learned persons may 
perhaps need a hint as to the distinction between 
the words. That distinction is found in their 
etymology: Depreciate (Lat. de, ofif, down, away, 
and pretium, price, prize) means to undervalue. 
Deprecate (Lat. de, away, precor, to pray) means 
“to pray a thing away,” to pray against a thing. 
Such are the original meanings of the two words: 
with these in mind one is in no danger of using 
one for the other. 

37. Polite. The use of Depreciate for Depre^ 
cate by a man of high literary standing was be- 
yond a doubt either a mere slip of the pen, or a 
typist’s error, or a compositor’s mistake. But 
a still brighter light in the literary firmament, a 
man who stood in the foremost rank of literati, 
when “taken in the act” of deriving our adjective 
Polite from the Gr. word Polites (citizen) made 
a very disingenuous defense, saying it was a slip 
of the pen or (and here he used a then newly 


30 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

coined word) a Heterophemy: in truth it was a 
case of being lured by False Lights. Now 
Heterophemy is when a man wishing to speak 
one word utters another and different one, e. g. 
says Green when he means Red. Heterophemy 
is a good and serviceable word, but it did not 
apply at all in the case of Polites and Polite. The 
distinguished litterateur “meant to say the other 
word”: but he forgot to tell us what that other 
word was. The defense was weak, it was sneak- 
ing; his offense was an Ignorantism, but the 
learned word Heterophemy got him acquittal 
from a very lenient court, even as bediamonded 
pilferers and shoplifters have been acquitted on 
the plea of kleptomania. No woman wearing a 
dollar shawl ever pleaded kleptomania in abate- 
ment; no court would listen to her nonsense. And 
no Grub street poet could excuse his ignorance 
of elementary Greek by alleging his Heter- 
ophemy. The Eng. word Polite comes from the 
Lat. participle Politus of the verb Polio, to 
smooth, furbish, polish. “Polite Letters” means 
elegant literature, belles lettres, as distinguished 
from scientific writing, technical discourse, etc. 
Politeness means social polish. 

38. Civil, Civility. The eminent poet, humor- 
ist, and essayist whose surprising slip in Greek 
was so benignly condoned, made in the same es- 


IGNORANTISMS. 


31 


say or address quite as big a slip in Latin, led 
astray again by False Lights; but his critic either 
failed to detect that or chose not to animadvert 
upon it. In a letter to the editor of the journal in 
which the erroneous derivation of Polite was first 
pointed out, another critic showed that the dis- 
tinguished author’s etymological argument to 
prove that Civility is also a product of City life 
was hardly less faulty than his derivation of Polite. 
It is true that Civil, Civility (Lat., civilis, civilitas) 
are derivatives of Lat. Civis, which means citizen. 
But in Latin no more than in English does Citi- 
zen (civis) mean freeman of a city: rather less in 
Latin than in English, for whereas locally Citizen 
or “cit” is used to signify freeman or denizen of a 
city, as distinguished from inhabitant of the coun- 
try, it never had that narrower meaning in Latin. 
Citizen and Countryman are opposite terms in 
English, never in Latin. Hence etymologi- 
cally considered, Civility is not a product 
of city life, but of life in a regulated 
community or State. The distinguished author 
was no doubt in the right, as a matter of fact, in 
regarding the city as the cradle of civilization, 
freedom and enlightenment: but his argument 
from etym logy was in . alid. It was an Ignorant- 
ism. The derivation of Urbane, Urbanity, from 
Lat. Urbs (city) and its adjective Urbanus was 


32 


PIT-FALLS IN ENGLISH. 


correct both etymologically and historically. In 
Latin Urbanus, inhabitant of a city, was used in 
opposition to Rusticus, countryman. If any ety- 
mological argument from the Greek is needed to 
support the thesis that liberty, enlightenment, civ- 
ilization are the product of city life, it is enough 
to know that without Polis (city) there had never 
been Politeia or well-ordered government. 

39. Wreak. This verb is the same as the Ger- 
man verb Raechen, to avenge; and in German 
Rache is vengeance. The phrase “wreak venge- 
ance” is a pleonasm and tautology like “die death/’ 
After the root meaning of Wreak was lost in 
English, the word began to be used in the sense 
of “executing”; thus Milton has “Wreak my 
wrath.” But the verb is now hardly used at all 
except in conjunction with the noun vengeance 
— Wreaking vengeance. Pope gives an instance 
of Wreak used in its true original sense — to 
avenge : 

On her own son to wreak her brother’s death ; 
but also an instance of its tautological use: 

Wreak my vengeance on one guilty land. 
King James’s Bible has not the word Wreak: 
there vengeance is “taken” or “executed.” 

40. Affiliate with its derivatives is often used 
ignorantly and blunderously in the sense of Fra- 
ternizing or Associating. In such use of the word 


r 


IGNORANTTSMS. 


33 


there seems to be an underlying- erroneous notion 
that the element “fil” (Lat. filius means brother 
or perhaps that Filiate implies the idea of Family 
and hence of familiar association. There is no 
such phrase known to correct usage as “to affiliate 
with”. Affiliation is a term of the Roman law 
and denotes the act of one who adopts another as 
his son ; the same act is expressed by the verb : al- 
ways Affiliation is the act of the one who makes 
the other his son; never the act of the one who 
assumes to the other the relation of sonship. In 
the English common law Affiliation means the 
assignment of a “natural” illegitimate child to its 
father. Filiation as an Eng. law term has the 
same meaning as Affiliation; outside of law it is 
used to express the relation of son to father, and 
is equivalent to Sonship. 

41. Handicap. As gamblers’ slang presses into 
the literary vocabulary it should be saved from 
corruption. It it sad to notice Handicap em- 
ployed by a writer in the public press in the sense 
of lack of the qualities that win a race for horse 
>r jockey. .The horse supposed to possess ad- 
antage of age or strength or fleetness is the one 
lat has to bear the extra weight; but in the fol- 
, wing sentence it is the inferior animal that is 
“handicapped”: “Our young men may be better 
looking than their competitors” in the race for a 


34 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


wife; “may wear better clothes, be more attract- 
ively wicked, and quite as useless ; but the Handi- 
cap is too much”. The “handicap” is that “they 
have no pedigree nor coat of arms, and so are 
out of the race”. Not only is this “handicap” not 
a handicap, but there is no question whatever 
either of handicap or race, since only one runner 
(and he has a walkover) is on the track: the rest 
are “out of the race.” 

42. Abhorrent. An eminent jurist and states- 
man a few years ago characterized the unrestricted 
powers of aggregated capital as Abhorrent forces, 
meaning “worthy of abhorrence.” Good usage 
does not authorize employment of the word in 
that sense. Properly Abhorrent means “feeling 
strong aversion”, as “He would abhorrent turn”; 
or figuratively it denotes a similar aversion on the 
part of things, as when we say Nature abhors a 
vacuum, or that a given philosophical view is “ab- 
horrent from the vulgar”. Darwin uses the word 
improperly: Abhorrent to our ideas of fitness, 
Abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. When it is 
desired to express the idea intended by Abhor- 
rent in this last phrase of Darwin’s and by the 
same word in the phrase “abhorrent forces” cor- 
rect usage would require substitution of some 
such word as Abominable or Execrable, which 
would render the idea adequately. But if Abhor- 


IGNORANTTSMS. 


35 


rent seem to possess any special grace or force, 
then it might be slightly changed by making it 
end with d instead of t, on th# model of not a 
few good words, as Ordinand, Multiplicand, Divi- 
dend. The only objection that could lie against 
Abhorrend would be that it is not in the dic- 
tionaries: but that is no valid objection to a per- 
fectly good, significant, and duly minted vocable. 
Get it once into print and all the dictionaries will 
have it in their next edition; not because it is a 
good and true word, but for the old-Adamic rea- 
son that each one knows that its neighbor will 
have it, and all editors are loath to suffer a “beat.” 

43. Peculiarly and Particularly. Perhaps a 
humorist is not held by the ordinary laws of lan- 
guage. If that is so it were best (for the English 
language) that he were read only by the educated, 
by those who are likely to see wherein for humor- 
istic ends he uses a humorist's license, and who, 
therefore, will not make the mistake of accept- 
ing his words and phases as grammatically law- 
ful. Less instructed readers will be unable to 
separate the licentious from the legitimate, and 
will import into their language of conversation, 
and so into the body of the spoken language, 
solecisms, vulgarisms, ignorantisms, and wilful- 
neses of speech that will disgrace the Mother- 
tongue. Such abnormities are caught up all too 


36 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


readily by the “bright young fellows” of the daily 
newspapers, who put them in print. Once in 
print the competing word-bookmakers shovel 
them into their omniumgatherums, and thence- 
forth for ever they have right of citizenship in the 
English language. Several of the faulty phrases 
censured in these notes are taken from the writ- 
ings of one of our great American humorists, but 
never from his professedly “humoristic” perform- 
ances. Only when he doffs motley and assumes 
the air of a sober instructor of the people does 
his use of the people’s language become matter 
for serious criticism. It was while enacting that 
role that he wrote of some one as being “Pecu'iarlv 
and Particularly himself.” If that phrase has any 
meaning it must be this, that “in his properties 
(or characteristics) and in his individuality he is 
himself.” In all probability it means simply “he 
is himself” and no more: the Peculiarly and the 
Particularly are added humoristically. But why 
does the editor of a respectable review permit 
such outrages «>n the English language? 

44. Transpire in the sense of Happen is a hide- 
ous Ignorantism. Its pedigree is short and 
ignoble. Expire means to draw the last breath, 
to give up the breath or ghost, to die. Transpire 
means literally “to emit through the excretories 
of the skin”; figuratively, to ooze out as a secret 


IGNORANTISMS. 


37 


does through closed doors and thick walls; hence, 
to have vent, to escape. Some inattentive reader 
of such passages as this from Cowper: 

Pierced with a thousand wounds I yet survive ; 
My pangs are keen, but no complaint transpires — 
taking Transpires as equivalent to Ensues or Fol- 
lows, began himself to use the word in that sense, 
and the meaning of “happening” was only one 
short step lower. The Latin has no verb Tran- 
spiro. 

45. Refer, Allude. These two verbs are syn- 
onymous in their use as terms to express mere 
mention of a subject-matter in discourse. They 
both denote passing attention to or mention of 
some matter, never anything like discussion of it. 
Yet in common usage, both in speaking and writ- 
ing, the subject of a discourse or the very sum 
and substance of a labored argument is spoken of 
as the subject “referred to” by writer or speaker. 
“Refer” seems to be ousting by degrees from con- 
versational use such verbs as Mention, Recite; 
e. g., “The train of events referred to by the 
speaker as accounting for,” etc. A very remark- 
able instance of misuse of the verb Allude is seen 
in the form of contract for supply of gold coin 
between the Rothschilds and other bankers 
on one side and the Secretary of the Treasury on 
the other (1895). Toward the end of the docu- 


38 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


ment, after the nature of the bonds to be given 
by the Treasury has been defined with all minute- 
ness, those very bonds are mentioned as “the 
bonds here” — in the contract — “alluded to.” In 
view of the manner in which the loan was ne- 
gotiated, the drawer-up of the contract might 
be pardoned had he “alluded” to the transaction 
as “this funny business.” 

46. Place (v.)’ means literally to put in a place. 
Figuratively, it has an analogous sense. But 
in whatever sense it is used, there must always be 
something which toward another thing will stand 
in a relation more or less like the relation of a 
place to an object existing in it. Hence Place 
(v.) is not in all points the same in denotation as 
Put or Set. We may “put” a telegraph line in 
operation or “set” it in' operation: we cannot 
“place” it in operation nor “place” a clock a-going. 

47. Sleuth denotes primarily the track or foot- 
print of a living creature, hence Sleuthhound is 
a hound that tracks an animal. In the termi- 
nology of the chase of the deer Sleuth takes the 
form Slot. A cant sobriquet of a detective is Old 
Sleuth, and in a semi-humorous vein the news- 
papers often call a detective a “sleuth.” It is not 
yet too late to prevent the word from getting cur- 
rency in that abusive sense. 

48. Pleasant (of weather). Fair or agreeable 


IGNORANTISMS. 


39 


weather may rightly be called Pleasant weather. 
But It is pleasant to-day, is not allowable. It 
would seem that attributively and predicativelv 
the epithet Pleasant may be with perfect propriety 
applied to weather, day, etc., but not when the 
same notions are expressed by “It.” 

49. Place, Situation, Position. Place, Situation, 
have long been used to denote permanent employ- 
ment: to them, for expressing the same notion, 
has been added the word Position. As the term 
Placeman proves, the word Place in this sense 
once denoted the most coveted of all employments 
— a situation under the Government. But to- 
day, except in that word Placeman and in a few 
consecrated phrases, Place as a designation of 
the opportunity of employment is used only in 
speaking of the employment of a domestic ser- 
vant. The clerk, the mechanic, the day laborer, 
the sempstress, the female clerk in a retail store, 
may fill Situations, or even desire Situations; but 
Places, never. Workers of the clerkly sort pre- 
fer to speak of their employments as Positions. 

50. Abstruse (Latin abs-trudo, abstrusum, 
thrusting away, hiding away) designates the char- 
acter of a subject of study which is far out of 
the beaten tracks, recondite. The epithet is prop- 
erly applied only to objects of study, not to the 
student or the researcher. It is used improperly 


40 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


in this phrase: “I know Judge G to be ab- 

struse and unusually well read.” 

51. Sodden. Whatever the weight of seeming 
authority for the use of this word in the sense 
of “soaked” no one of quick unblunted etymologi- 
cal conscience will use it in such abusive sense. 
Sodden is the past participle of the verb which 
we now spell Seethe, and it means primarily 
seethed, boiled. 

52. Reeking. It is not easy to determine the 
meaning given to this word in the phrase Reeking 
with filth — probably “glutted”, “choked”, “ob- 
structed”, or “covered.” But the word has no 
such meaning at all. The noun Reek is the same 
word as the German Rauch, which means Smoke, 
and the verb has the same denotation. Shake- 
speare has: 

As reek o’ the rotten fens ; whose breath I hate. 
And he has: 

Her face doth reek and smoke. 

But then he has also: 

With reeky (dirty?) shanks; 
which shows that he was not always alive to the 
etymology of Reek. Even Shakespeare is no au- 
thority when he violates the laws. “Reeking 
with filth” is an inadmissible form of expression. 
We may say The filth reeks, or, The filth of the 


IGNORANTISMS 


41 


streets reeks, or, The streets are reeking — if, in- 
deed, their filth is giving forth visible and odor- 
able effluvia. 

53. Tantalize means, not to tease and worry one 
in any and every way, but only “by present- 
ing something desirable to the view, while con- 
tinually frustrating the expectation by keeping it 
out of reach.” The verb “crystallizes” the story 
of Tantalus, dying of thirst though merged to 
the lips in water. 

54. Flippant. In two manifestoes published on 
the same day by two high officials of a railroad 
company the one spoke of Flippant bail, the other 
of Trivial bail, meaning insufficient bail, bail in 
too trivial a sum. Flippant is properly used to 
qualify either the behavior of persons or their 
manner of utterance, and it denotes pertness and 
volubility. It cannot with propriety be applied as 
an epithet to bail. “Trivial bail” is not open to 
such objection, though “Trifling bail” would be 
better. 

55. Host. When Host is used in the sense of 
“a multitude” aggregation is always implied, and 
the members of the Host are conceived as stand- 
ing together or thronging. The divisions of po- 
litical geography do not throng though their 
populations may swarm. Hence it is an im- 
proper use of the word Host to say, In a host of 
counties drought prevails. 


42 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


56. Bifurcate Dilemma, a phrase used by a 
noted social reformer, shows rather command of 
a multiplicity of words than understanding of 
their true import. Whoever says Dilemma by 
that one word says Bifurcate (two forked, or 
rather two pronged), the Dilemma being “an ar- 
gument in which an adversary is held between 
two difficulties.” 

57. Cover (v.). Even though a man be a giant 
in stature, girth, and avoirdupois, it is absurd of 
him to say, I have covered the city, meaning ex- 
plored, or canvassed the city, visited it in every 
part. 

58. Vim. The boundless tolerance of diction- 
arians is well exemplified in their admission to 
their vocabularies of such doglatin slang as the 
word Vim — “with a vim.” It occurs in one of 
the greatest of modem English dictionaries with- 
out any mention of its slanginess. No note is 
there to warn the unwary that the word is a mere 
Ignorantism, but the asterisk is prefixed as in the 
case of obsolete words* or meanings. Vim is no 
obsolete word. It never was, and never should 
be an English word. 

59. Fruition seems to be losing its true mean- 
ing, viz., Use and enjoyment, and to be taking 
on the sense of Fruitage, a meaning not given it 
by any writer of passable competence in the use 


IGNORANTISMS. 


43 


of English. The word is from the same root as 
our English “fruit”, and that from Lat. Fructus, 
which means both the use and enjoyment of a 
thing, and the thing which is used or enjoyed, as 
agricultural produce. But Fruition does not 
signify the act of a tree in producing apples or 
pears, and that is the meaning now vulgarly given 
to the word, e. g.: “When the scheme comes to 
Fruition,” e. g., begins to yield profit; “The 
Fruition of his hopes”, i. e., the fulfillment. 

60. Extra. This word or prefix is very com- 
monly used in conversation and in newspapers in 
the same sense as Super, Supra, and the Gr. pre- 
fix Hyper. Thus we hear Extra-good, Extra- 
cheap. The true force of Extra is seen in the 
word Extraordinary, which, instead of denoting 
a greater ordinariness means “out of the ordi- 
nary.” A few examples will show the native im- 
port of the prefix: Extradition, giving up to an 
outside authority; Extrajudicial, out of the. ordi- 
nary course of judicial proceeding; Extralogical, 
lying outside the province of logic: Extramun- 
dane, outside the system of the sensible universe; 
Extraregular, beyond rules. The abuse of' Extra 
has gone so far that many readers will probably 
be surprised to learn that in correct usage Extra 
never has the effect of enhancing the meaning of 
the word to which it is prefixed. Almost as ob- 


44 PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

jectionable a use of the word Extra as the one 
just mentioned is seen in the hybrid word patched 
(not coined) by E. B. Tylor, viz., Extra-historic, 
meaning outside of history proper. Here the 
fault is not that Extra is used out of its etymologi- 
cal sense, for it is not, but that a Latin element 
is coupled with a Greek when a Greek element 
might conveniently have been used. The right 
prefix here would have been Ex (exo), Gr., hav- 
ing the same meaning as Extra. Exhistoric is 
the correct form. 

61. Diatribe. The invidious meaning of this 
word did not attach to it till long after its intro- 
duction into our language. Diatribe is Greek, 
and means literally Rubbing, and figuratively, 
thorough discussion of a subject, hence a set and 
studied treatise. Authors in the 16th and 17th 
centuries used to entitle their critical studies “dia- 
tribes”, y.ccer meaning by that term anything 
in the nature of invective, abuse, or reviling. 
Thus we have a commentary on the Gospel of 
Mark spoken of as “that excellent Diatriba on 
Saint Mark.” There is no doubt that the now 
received meaning of Diatribe is due to the vio- 
lence with which scholars in the 16th and 17th 
centuries used to assail their rivals in learning, 
taking every possible occasion to prove their op^ 
ponents dunces and falsifiers. 


IGNORANT'ISMS. 


45 


62. Political Policy. The author of “Bifur- 
cate Dilemma” is sponsor for the phrase Political 
Policy, in which both words are debased to their 
vulgarest meaning, Political being taken to mean 
“pertaining to the pothouse politician”, and Policy 
to denote the low tricks and devices of such 
schemers. How shall the serious-minded re- 
former of civic life ever be able to inspire men 
with ideas of Political virtue if the very terms 
he must use in discourse are in advance emptied 
of all significance save of what is mean and vile? 

63. Circumambient. Whoever first wrote this 
word must have fancied that he knew Latin bet- 
ter than the Latins. They were content with 
simple Atnbio, without Circum. And the old 
Latins were in the right, for the idea of Circum 
(round about) is already in the word, and to add 
to it is as unnecessary as to prefix Circum to Cir- 
culate. “Ambio” is a compound word formed 
of Ambi (around, round about) and Eo (to go), 
and hence Ambiens (ambient) means Surround- 
ing, Circling or Circulating about, and Circum- 
ambient cannot possibly mean any more. 

64. Nonplus indicates the mental state of a 
man so worsted in argument that “plus non 
habet” (he has nothing more) to say, no further 
reasons to produce; he is at the end of his argu- 
mental resources. Such a man is not one bam- 


46 PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

boozled or puzzled. Dictionarians include in 
their definitions of Nonplus the notion of per- 
plexity, puzzlement, bewilderment, but cannot 
cite from literature authorities for such use of 
the term. When South writes, “The Nonplus of 
my reason will yield a fairer opportunity to my 
faith,” he means that when his reason comes to 
the end of its resources his faith will have fairer 
opportunity. In the sentence following the verb 
Nonplus is used improperly: “The railroad com- 
panies are doing their best to Nonplus the pub- 
lic with the belief,” etc. 

65. Empiric. Had this word come into our 
English after Bacon’s day it would now be a 
word high in honor instead of a term of re- 
proach. It is from Greek, and means Experi- 
mentalist, or experimental philosopher, an in- 
ductive reasoner, one who tests conelusions by 
observation and experiment. It need not be 
said that modem philosophers and modern na- 
turalists and men of science are proud to be Em- 
pirics in this sense, the only legitimate sense of 
the word. Empiric seems to have been original- 
ly employed in a good sense to designate a 
school of 'medicine which had its rise two or 
three hundred years before our era. This sect 
or school rejected the traditionalist and specu- 
lative teachings of the dogmatic schools, and 


IGNOR ANTI SMS. 


47 


professed to derive their knowledge of diseases 
and remedies from observation and experiment. 
In modern times practicers of medicine who 
enter the calling of physician without what i? 
called a regular medical education, trusting 
wholly to what they have gathered by their own 
effort and their own experience, are called Em- 
pirics; hence Empiric means in the terminology 
of reqular practicers Quack, Charlatan. 


SECTION III. MISCELLANEOUS 
PHRASES. 

66. ONE exhibits great poverty of expression 
whose sole formula of assent or approval is All 
Right. It is a much overworked phrase. Real 
Good is a vulgarization of a phrase which, cor- 
rectly expressed and employed where occasion 
calls for it, is both temperate and emphatic : really 
good, opposed to make-beliefly good. Every 
Time is not an improvement on Always. When 
two acts are of equal facility or equal difficulty in 
the doing it suffices usually to say that one is “as 
easy” or “as difficult” as the other. But not 
content with thus accurately and temperately ex- 
pressing the equality, common usage asserts of 
them exact equality: one is “just” as easy as the 
other. A similar exaggeration or mild hysteric- 
ism is seen in the phrase, “I was Deathly sick/’ 
meaning “I was suffering from nausea.” A cold 
is always a Bad Cold. Whatever is enjoyable is 
Perfectly lovely. “Nice” is one of our over- 
worked words: it covers a multitude of senses. 

48 


MISCELLANEOUS PHRASES. 49 

Perhaps it is not superfluous caution to brand as 
slang the phrase “He made himself Solid with 
the party leaders.” The figure cafled by rhet- 
oricians Aposiopesis is highly effective when used 
discreetly: it is employed quite too frequently 
in ordinary conversation, as in the expressions I 
was So pleased, We had Such a good time. 

67. In the following sentence the intention of 
the speaker must decide whether Or or Nor shall 
be used between “papers” and “documents.” The 
author from whom the passage is taken uses Or, 
though almost certainly his intention demanded 
Nor: “We have no papers or documents in re- 
gard to this line.” If Papers there denotes any- 
thing different from Documents Nor must be 
used: if the two terms are identical in sense, and 
the one merely amplificative of the other Or 
is the proper conjunction to use. 

68. The final preposition in the phrase “Curi- 
osity as to where the gold goes to” is superfluous 
and inelegant. We do not ask “To where does 
the gold go?” In “I must have a place equally 
as good,” the “as” is not needed; “equally good” 
expresses the idea fully. “Going to go,” “going 
to come,” are plainly inelegant; but the use of 
T am going to” do this or that as an habitual 
mode of expressing purpose to perform an 
action is almost as objectionable. Say “I in- 


50 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


tend”, or “purpose”, or “mean”, or “design”, 
etc., or “I am to”, or “I will” or “shall”; not ban- 
ning the phrase “I am going to” utterly, but not 
overworking it.* 

69. Some speakers never Decide or Conclude 
or Determine to do anything: they “make up 
their mind.” Others after “making up their 
mind” to act, as a preliminary to action go about 
some imaginary sort of work, to get their hand 
in: then they are ready for action. Here is a 
section of 1 a conversation overheard in a rail- 
way car: “I told him I wasn’t Going to Work to 
pay him the bill, but if he’d Go to Work and 
give me credit for my extra hours, why, then I’d 
Go to Work and settle the whole thing right 
away.” 

70. Such a form of expression as “I don’t wish 
to” is intolerable even in familiar talk; in writing 
it is an abomination. Yet the president of one 
of our foremost seats of learning is author of this 
sentence: “The commission is at liberty to, and 
it proposes to, enlarge the facilities,” etc. If the 
commission had been disinclined to “enlarge the 
facilities,” the reason doubtless would have been 
given in elegant form by saying “it does not feel 
like enlarging,” etc. It does not make one “feel 
good” to notice such slovenliness in a document 
penned by the head of a great and aspiring uni- 
versity. 


MISCELLANEOUS PHRASES. 


51 


71. The phrase That Depends is perfectly just, 
and it is no incomplete phrase comparable to an 
aposiopesis. That Depends’ means that the val- 
idity of a conclusion, for example, is contingent, 
literally it hangs suspended or undecided. “The 
man was hanged” tells the whole story; needless 
to add “from a gallows.” 

72. The phrase Only Too Willing is supplant- 
ing the simple word Willing. A disposition of 
mind that would find adequate expression in “1 
should like well,” or “It would please me,” or the 
like is now usually expressed by the “precious” 
formula above. 

73. A judge in rendering decision of a very 

famous suit spoke of the three respondents or de- 
fendants (they were executors of a last will) as 
Trustees ex Maleficio. Then, lest the three 
executors should regard the phrase, without quite 
understanding the Latin words, as imputing to 
them dishonest dealing, he wrote : “I do not mean 
to be understood as saying that either one of said 
defendants committed any actual fraud. . . . 

There is nothing in the evidence showing that 

all Mr. R ’s acts” — he was one of three — * 

“were not free from fraud.” Doubtless the judge’s 
intention was to acquit the trustees of even the 
shadow of a suspicion of dishonesty. But profes- 
sional vanity dictated the Latin technical phrase, 


52 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


and it had to be put in the first place: its ugliness 
could then be smoothed away. And see how the 
smoothing is done. The defendants had not com- 
mitted “any ‘actual’ fraud.” Why, the men had 
not committed any fraud at all — in the sense 
of fraud as understood by laymen ; and as the in- 
cidental explanation of the phrase Trustees ex 
Maleficio was addressed to laymen, the language 
ought to have been such as laymen use. What 
the judge meant was “had not committed any 
fraud whatever,” or any dishonesty. Not content 

with this he attempted to relieve Mr. R in 

particular of any faintest suspicion of fraud, and 
added the cumbersome, intricate sentence “There 
is nothing,” etc., the import of which cannot be 
got at without analysis. He meant to say “The 

evidence shows all Mr. R ’s acts to be free 

from fraud.” But the involvement of clauses in 
the sentence produces in the mind of the hearer 
or reader a puzzling effect comparable to that 
produced by the old jingle, “Tobacco hie, tobacco 
hie, will make you well if you are sick; Tobacco 
hie, tobacco hie, if you are well will make you 
sick.” 

74. Getting Religion. This old cant will prob- 
ably before long be changed to the form “secur- 
ing religion.” It has made one step toward the 
suggested new form, a man in Jersey City having 
declared that he had “received” religion. 


MISCELLANEOUS PHRASES. 


53 


75. If the weather in Germany in the winter of 
1894-95 was, a s the newspapers reported, “terrific- 
ally severe,” it was quite unnecessary to add “un- 
usually” (terrifically and unusually severe). Under 
Terrifically severe winters, if they were usual, 
there would be no Germany. 

76. In a testimonial address to a man who had 
deserved well of his fellow citizens was this sen- 
tence, “Your praise shall find room in the eyes of 
all posterity”; an absurd expression, for the organ 
that takes cognizance of praise, as of fame, is 
the ear, not the eye. Then, “find room in the 
eye”! That organ, so sensitive that the minutest 
mote that finds lodgment in it causes distress. 

short, the metaphor, or whatever the figure of 
speech may be called, is quite incongruous. 
Nevertheless the passage is from Shakespeare’s 
Sonnet 55. 

77. Eeastlv Drunk is a phrase which has no 
justification in fact. Beasts are not addicted to 
the vice of drunkenness, and in the state of nature 
are not given to any vices, whether laziness ot 
filthy habits (the wild boar is said to be of all ani- 
mals most scrupulously neat in his habits).; and 
their diseases and vices in the domesticated state 
are the result of their unnatural environment. 

78. There is an implied calumny against the 
feathered tribe in the phrase, “He feathered his 


54 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


nest/’ meaning that one robbed his neighbor to 
enrich himself and his family. Some birds feather 
their nests with the down and plumage of their 
own breasts, others with the cast plumage of their 
fellows. None feather their nests at the expense 
of their kind. The bird’s feathering of her nest 
is altogether kindly and lovely, and admirable and 
holy. The phrase that expresses in our language 
her loving providence for her bairns sho aid never 
be employed' to designate the meannesses and 
treasons of man. We impennate bipeds are liter- 
ally and figuratively the only creatures that rob 
one another and our fellow creatures of their 
means of comfort and adornment. Again, no 
bird out of fable ever strutted in alien plumage. 
But who has not seen the great generals and the 
great captains of industry whose fame and for- 
tune have been won for them by their humble and 
unknown and unguerdoned instruments? 

* 79. Every Other Day. Some grammarians 
troubled with scruples thirfk this phrase incorrect, 
and that the meaning of it is All other days. The 
proper phrase, say they, for expressing the no- 
tion intended to be signified by the inculpated 
formula is “every second day,” or “alternate days.” 
But those Latinish words are etymologically 
counterparts of “every other.” Alter (Lat.) means 
“the other.” From Alter comes Alternus, one 


MISCELLANEOUS PHRASES. 55 

after another. Second is of the same meaning as 
“the other.” It is usual in Latin to number a 
series thus: tomusr prior (vol. I.), tomus altera 
(the other vol., vol. 2), tomus tertia, quarta (third 
fourth), etc. And “Second day” in a succession of 
days is alter dies (the other day.) If in Latin one 
wished to express in the singular number the 
notion “every other day,” or “every second day,” 
or each alternate day, he would have to use a 
phrase identical in all its parts with the English 
one to which objection is made, viz., altero quoque 
die; but the plural form is both shorter and bet- 
ter, altemis diebus, on alternate days, that is, “on 
the other days,” the second days. 

80. In the phrase “At a Dear cost” Dear is used 
illegitimately. That which is got at a high price 
may be said to be Dear, being costly. But the 
price is not “dear,” nor the cost. Prices are high, 
cost is high. Price is the assumed equivalent in 
money or other exchangeable thing of what is 
sold: for both buyer and seller the equivalent is 
the Price. But cost is the price the buyer pays: 
it is price from the buyer’s side, but not from the 
seller’s as seller. Again, though one may have 
made many purchases, when he pays he pays the 
Cost of them, not the Costs. The plural form is 
used only of the charges incurred by a party to 
a suit at law. Unless the several items of a gross 


56 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


sum expended are to be specified it is more cor- 
rect to say : “The expenditure was so much” than 
“the expenditures.” 

81. Exceptio probat regulam is usually trans- 
lated The exception proves the rule (perhaps it 
were better translated An exception proves a 
rule); and the dictum is glibly repeated, whether 
in Latin or English, too often, it is to be feared, 
without understanding of its import. How does 
an exception prove a rule? There is a rule of 
Latin prosody which makes the penultima (the 
syllable next before the last) in such words as 
faciei, speciei, long, and to that rule there are 
three exceptions, the three words fidei, spei, and 
rei having the penultima short. With these three 
words in hand, and known to be short or “com- 
mon” in the penultima, could any one “prove” 
from them that the penultima in all other words' 
of like form is long? Certainly not. But if 
fidei, spei, rei are given to him as “exceptional” 
in the quantity of the penultima, the inevitable in- 
ference for him is that words of that class have the 
penultima long. It is thus, and thus only, that an 
exception proves a rule. 


SECTION IV. SYNTAX AND FOREIGN- 
ISMS. 


A. SOME POINTS OF SYNTAX AND THE LAWS 
OF EXPRESSION. 

82. IF it is not a law of English syntax that 
where “has been” or “has done” is predicated of 
a subject (man, beast, or inanimate thing) that 
subject is supposed to be living or existing really 
or figuratively or constructively when the propo- 
sition is announced, then such a law would be a 
good one to recognize and formulate, for it ap- 
pears to have the characters of a natural law ot 
the language. Whether the law is recognized or 
not, the use of the “perfect tense” only under 
such conditions would be of advantage. The 
Latin language with all its tenses is incapable of 
indicating by simple choice of the tense the con- 
tinued existence or life of the subject. Historias 
scripsit Livius; Multa Sinensium munimenta. 
ceperunt Japones (Livy wrote histories; the Jap- 
anese took many fortifications of the Chinese) : the 
writer of Latin has but one tense-form (the per- 
fect) to express both notions : so that whether the 
57 


58 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


taking of the fortifications is a matter of ancient 
history or a thing announced this moment for the 
first time, having taken place yesterday, the Latin 
can only say ceperunt for both cases, while we 
can say “took” for the historical captures, and 
“have taken” when we speak of yesterday’s doings. 
When we find in an author^ “George Sand has 
always been a careful worker” we know that when 
the sentence was penned the writer knew, or be- 
lieved, that George Sand was living. 

83. If our reading of the “natural law” of the 
perfect tense is true, then this sentence violates 
law: “This picture has been painted by Tintoret,” 
unless it be supposed written by a contemporary 
of Tintoret. But what of such a phrase as, “Cicero 
has been accused of inordinate vainglory”? The 
“has been” there is justified, for Cicero still lives 
in fame, and to this day men are judging him. 
Some one, remarking on the murder of a young 
’ actress by her lover, writes: “All who knew her 
agree that her professional life was exemplary, but 
what a wretched ending it has had!” The sen- 
tence was written within a few days after the 
young woman’s death. By a figure of speech the 
life is imagined to have just ended: it is as though 
one were standing beside the bier. Suppose weeks 
or months to have intervened and “has had” 
would be a bold figure of speech indeed. 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 59 

84. In the collocation of words in a sentence 
very little is left to the choice of the speaker or 
writer of English. For example, the qualifying 
article Only has its place very strictly assigned by 
the laws of expression, and this place is easily 
found on analyzing the sentence in which the 
word occurs. A distinguished author begins a 
sentence thus: “The drama, upon which the cur- 
tain had only fallen a short time since.” Here 
Only is out of its due place; it should stand im- 
mediately before “a short time.” Placed before 
“fallen” it modifies or qualifies that word, contrary 
to the writer’s intention. The misplacing of Only 
is extremely common. The same author has 
“They dishonorably treated him in return,” the 
qualifying adverb again misplaced. In passing, 
notice is to be taken of the incorrect use of Since 
instead of Before. Though Since is often em- 
ployed in the sense of Ago (before now), as 

Twelve years since 
Thy father was the Duke of Milan ; 
it nowhere has the meaning of “before then,” 
“before that time.” 

85. Such ungrammatical phrases as the follow- 
ing are seen so often in print that a certain meas- 
ure of “authority” might seem to exist for their 
justification: “Some of the attendants ‘whom’ he 
said were incompetent.” “Who” is required in 


60 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


that sentence by a law that no “authority” is like- 
ly to abrogate for some time yet. 

86. Sometimes, through fear of falling into a 
syntactic error, one will use an adverb where the 
laws of grammar call for an adjective, e. g., as 
when one says he feels contemptuously toward 
another, meaning contemptuous. In such 
phrases the adjective attaches to the person who 
feels, not to the manner of his feeling: it is as if 
he had said “I feel myself contemptuous toward.” 
So one feels angry, not angrily, happy not 
happily, miserable not miserably. Similarly the 
correct expression is “It looks bad or gloomy for 
John,” not badly nor gloomily. Dear is already 
an adverb, and that form is often preferable to 
dearly: “He paid dear for his whistle”: “It cost me 
dear.” If any one chooses to use cheap (adv.) 
always, not cheaply, he will have full approval 
of the genius of the language. 

87. We was, You was, They was, i. e., the use 
of Was as plural of the past tense of the verb to 
be, once had the sanction of the best usage; but 
now the plural of that tense is Were, and Was is 
a vulgarism when coupled with a plural subject. 
Had Ought, as in the phrase “He had ought to 
be here” is also a vulgarism as bad as Had Went. 
“He done it” is often used erroneously instead of 
“He did it.” It is a provincialism to use “as” in- 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 


61 


stead of “that” or “whether” in such phrases as 
“I don’t know as I do.” 

88. The preposition To, which we use as part 
of what w*e call the infinitive form of verbs, is the 
preposition “to,” but the etymological significa- 
tion is no longer perceived, and “to” is a particle 
comparable to the terminations “ing” and “ation,” 
and an inseparable part of the infinitive form of ‘ 
verbs. No author who uses English with pro- 
priety ever separates “to” from the verbal word 
by interposition even of a monosyllable, e. g., “to 
so direct”: the correct style is “so to direct,” or 
“to direct so.” Interposition of a word of sev- 
eral syllables is a more serious violation of the 
law of usage: “To decisively pronounce.” But 
quite intolerable is the phrase used by a very dis- 
tinguished jurist, “A purpose to in some way use 
the grand jury.” One might almost as well say, 
“Contro stoutly verting,” or “Per insensibly vad- 
ing,” instead of “stoutly controverting,” “in- 
sensibly pervading;” or “y John clept” for yclept 
John, the y in that antiquated participle standing 
for a more ancient ge: geklept. That ge (or y) 
marked completed action, as “to” helps to ex- 
press action in the abstract. 

89. No little discrimination is required to de- 
cide which form, the adjectival or the adverbial, 
should be used in such phrases as High-strung, 


62 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


Dealing fair, Feeding fair and fat, Lying soft, 
Seeing clear, Hitting foul; of all of these per- 
haps the last is the only one whose adverb may 
rightly take the termination “ly.” 

go. Despite its plural-like form, three and a 
half feet of water is a singular concept, and should 
be construed as of the singular number: “There 
is ten feet of water”; ‘Three thousand five hun- 
dred dollars is in the chest”; “Between twenty-five 
hundred and three thousand dollars is due.” But 
“Between twenty and thirty members were pres- 
ent.” For the same reason that a given number 
of dollars is treated as a singular concept, “an 
ironworks”, “a barracks”, “a scissors” must be re- 
garded as legitimate phrases. And /when we 
speak of the United States as a whole without spe- 
cific regard to its parts, the term should be con- 
strued as of the singular number: nor need 
grammarians have waited for “the dread ar- 
bitrament of war” to decide that point of syntax: 
a number of independent States standing together 
in a mere Zollverein or customs union might 
legitimately be treated as of the singular number, 
91. Conversely, “Every One” in comprehension 
is plural, and that fact fully justifies such usage 
as “Every one brought their provisions.” The 
same is to be said of No One: “No one thought 
of themselves.” In having but one form to ex- 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 


63 


press the possessive case of he, she, it, some other 
languages, as Latin, French, have an advantage 
over English. Whether the subject of a sentence 
is man or woman, the knife of either is “son”', 
“son couteau”, the possessive pronoun standing 
both for “hrs” and “her/’ Often we say “his’ , 
when we mean “his-or-her”, and for such cases 
it has been seriously proposed to coin a com- 
pound possessive pronoun, “hiser” or “hisher” 
(pron. hizzer.) But another way out of the diffi- 
culty is found in substituting “their” for “his-or- 
her.” John Ruskin, greatest living master of 
English, but not in the least finical, uses the 
plural “their” after “any one”, “every one”, “no 
one”, and the like. 

92. When addition of the inflectional s of the 
possessive case produces an unpleasant succession 
of hissing, or hizzing, sounds, the rule that al- 
ready holds for the possesive plural ought to ap- 
ply: when the plural form of a noun ends with 
s soft (equal to z) no s is added for the possessive 
case. Euphony decides that question. Let 
euphony also decide the form of the possessive 
case of Demosthenes, Moses, Jesus, Xerxes, and 
the rest. 

93. Near (prep, and adv.) is to be preferred to 
“nearly”, except where “nearly” is required to 
express the intended meaning. “John * s near 


64 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


fifty years old” is better than “nearly fifty years 
old.” “About his eightieth year” is better than 
“about in.” Write “near undone”, instead of 
“nearly.” But in “had nearly occasioned the ruin 
of his friend”, “nearly” is indispensable. 

94. In the phrases following the words between 
curves may with advantage be dropped: To in- 
fringe (on) the royal authority; to approve (of) a 
policy; to do away (with) an abuse: these phrases 
are types of many others which might be mended 
by a like surgery. 

95. “A year ago” means, not twelve months 
just elapsed, but a point of time immediately 
prior to those twelve months. Hence the phrase 
“Within a year ago” is incorrect: to convey the 
notion intended one must say “within a year,” or, 
to be perfectly definite, “within the year just past.” 

96. Such phrases as “Going on ten years”, “he 
had no end of trouble”, “it cost me no end of 
anxiety”, are perfectly legitimate and idiomatic, 
and are not to be put out of use by the rulings of 
grammarians. 

97. “Enough” in the phrase Curiously Enough 
is but a tribute to use and wont. Drop it, and 
“curiously” by itself expresses the idea quite as 
definitely. 

98. “By all means” signifies just what it says 
— “with employment of every means or instru- 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 65 

mentality”; “I will get there by all means”; “He 
can by no mean? earn ten thousand a year”: in 
such sentences we see the phrase employed in 
its true sense. But in the following examples it 
is used quite out of its meaning: First, but by 
no means most deserving; Are you a freetrader? 
By no means. It is not denied that even the best 
writers employ the phrase sometimes amiss. But 
a nice grammatical conscience will not tolerate 
departure from the true meaning. 

99. Frequent use of such phrases as “in the 
event that” when a single “if” would suffice, is 
mere pedantism and affectation. Such, too, is 
the “precious” phrase “if by any chance.” 

100. Grammar, Grammatical, Ungrammatical, 
are often employed in a sense which implies that 
syntax is the whole of grammar. If one says 
“I is”, or “He hates you and I”, or “We was”, 
he is said to violate the rules of grammar: the 
same is not said of misspelling, though misspelling 
is also a violation of the laws of grammar, viz., 
of orthography, one of the departments of gram- 
mar. But whoever uses words in senses not 
justified, either by etymology or usage, also vio- 
lates the laws of grammar: but if he only avoids 
breaking the syntactic laws his offense is not re- 
garded as against grammar. Grammar, the 
grammar of a language, is the sum of the laws 


66 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


which govern its processes : it is both the anatomy 
and the physiology of the language. 

101. Tn the Constitution of the United States 
and its Amendments, except the last three, the 
legislative department is always styled “the Con- 
gress.” President Cleveland in his Messages in- 
variably retains the style of the Constitution 
in this respect, and for him Congress is always 
“the Congress.” 

102. In Britain the head of the state is always 
“the King” (or “the Queen”), and by that phrase 
no other monarch is understood throughout the 
British dominions, as by “Parliament” when em- 
ployed out of direct relation to the affairs of any 
outside country, the British Parliament is desig- 
nated. But in the United States, in the public 
press and in conversation “Parliament” and “the 
Queen” are very usual designations for the Legis- 
lature and monarch of Great Britain, as though 
those institutions of our kin over sea appertained 
to them alone, or in a pre-eminent degree. Igno- 
rance and thoughtlessness are answerable for such 
use of the terms in the United States. In this 
country the phrase “the President”, unaccom- 
panied by mention of functions or relations that 
might serve to define its meaning, is understood 
of the President of the United States: “the Treas- 
ury” is the United States Treasury; and so on. 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 67 

A journal published in ’England would no more 
express the notion “President of the United 
States” by “the President” in a detached para- 
graph, than in mentioning in similar circum- 
stances the Emperor of Russia it would style him 
simply “His Majesty.” And that is correct usage. 
In this country even the phrase “the Royal Navy” 
is used often as equivalent to “the British navy.” 
Catnip tea, brewed by Grimalkin & Co., purveyors 
to Her Majesty, the Queen, their Royal High- 
nesses, and their Imperial Transparencies, passes 
for superexcellent in virtue of the survival here 
of ancestral insularity and provincialism. 

103. A Message of a President of the United 
States to Congress on the necessity of providing 
a reserve of gold in the Treasury contains the fol- 
lowing sentence: “In the judgment of those espe- 
cially charged with this responsibility, the busi- 
ness situation is so critical, and the legislative 
situation so unpromising, with the omission thus 
far on the part of the Congress to beneficially 
enlarge the powers of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury in the premises, as to enjoin immediately 
executive action with the facilities at hand.” To 
say nothing of such pidgin English phrases as 
“legislative situation”, “beneficially enlarge”, “in 
the premises”, “facilities at hand” (meaning 
powers or authority given by law), or the use 


68 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


of the ambiguous word “enjoin”, which means to 
order to be done or to forbid doing; or of the re- 
lation which “with” (“with the omission”, etc.) 
establishes between what precedes it and what 
follows, the sentence (if it may be called 
a sentence) is nonsense, has no meaning, 
affirms or denies nothing. The Message 
was uncommonly brief, and the passage 
quoted was no small fractional part of it; 
it was besides, or was intended to be, a very im- 
portant part of the Message. Hence this part 
being so deadly defective and null, we should not 
say with Senator John Sherman that such a 
Message is “a clear and well-written document”; 
nor with Mr. Steams, a man prominent among 
bankers in New York, that in this Message “the 
President puts the question in a nutshell.” In 
the same Message the President writes of the 
terms of a contract between the Treasury and 
certain bankers, that by it “the privilege is espe- 
cially reserved to the Government” to make 
slightly different terms for obtaining the needed 
gold. That is an abuse of the word Privilege. 
It is not a privilege, but a right, that both parties 
to a proposed contract shall be free to define the 
conditions on which they will contract. Another 
phrase in the same brief Message is “other bonds 
in terms payable in gold ” What the President 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 


meant to say was simply “other bonds payable in 
gold.” 

104. Many persons have what might aptly be 
called a false grammatical conscience with re- 
gard to the propriety of the expression Spoonfuls, 
thinking that they must say spoonsful. A mo- 
ment’s thought would banish their scruple. For 
when the Doctor prescribes for Baby medicine 
to be administered by the spoonful, he surely does 
not mean that if three such quantities are to be 
given as one dose three spoons must be em- 
ployed: and if there are not three spoons how, O 
slave of the letter, how can there be three spoons 
full, or empty either? The expressions Spoonful, 
Spoonfuls, bucketful, bucketfuls, hatful, house- 
ful, are quite above reproach, whether in the 
singular or the plural number, and to have any 
scruple about them is to borrow trouble. 

105. A similar overscrupulosity — if that word 
be allowable or necessary, for Scruple says 
enough — is seen when people boggle at such a 
phrase as “Any one else’s business.” They think 
the right phrasing is “any one’s else.” The argu- 
ment by which they defend the precious formula 
would make it consequent for them to say “His 
father’s in law property”, “the commanders in 
chief orders”, “the Attorney’s General office.’* 
Doubtless their “first line of defense” would be a 


70 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


distinction, between the forms of the two classes 
of phrases ; but there is positively no difference of 
form except that one is hyphenated, the other not. 
With or without hyphens, commander in chief is 
one term, one noun, and, like other nouns, takes 
its inflection (for the possessive case: singular) at 
the end, though for the plural in commander in 
chief, Attorney General, etc., the inflection at- 
taches to the first element in the words. “Any 
one else” is inflected in the singular number in 
the same way: its plural form “any persons else” 
also conforms to the formula of attorneys gen- 
eral, commanders in chief. The first line of de- 
fense broken there is no second; the scrupulous 
ones have no support from usage. 

106. Disembodied is a type of a numerous class 
of words in the formation of which the plain laws 
of wordbuilding would seem to have been disre- 
garded. Embody is a word rationally con- 
structed; it means literally to invest with a body, 
to set into a body. In composition Dis is the 
opposite of En or Em. Then why should not the 
opposite of Embody be Disbody? The word 
Disbody is already in the language, but in dic- 
tionaries it has set against it a sign to indicate 
obsoleteness. But the warning ought to be dis- 
regarded, and the word allowed free currency to 
the driving out of Disembody. To get the form 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 71 

Disembody we must first invest with a body, and 
then do away with that vesture. What an ab- 
surdity. Disembody, we have said, is a type of a 
large class of irrationally formed words. Here 
are a few of them: Disembark, Disembarrass, 
Disembay, Disembellish (one is tolerant of the 
mark for “obsolete” set against such a word as 
that), Disembogue, Disembowel, Disembower, 
Disenchain, Disenchant, Disencourage, Disen- 
dow, Disenfranchise, Disengage. 

107. There are a few pairs of words the mem- 
bers of which are often erroneously used for each 
other, e. g., lie and lay, sit and set, learn and 
teach (but the existence of the word Learned is 
proof that at one time “to learn” was used in the 
sense of “to teach.”) The difference between Lie 
and Lay, Sit and Set, is that in each pair the first 
member is “intransitive”, as grammarians say — - 
that is, it expresses an action that does not pass 
over to an object, while the second member is 
“transitive”, passing over to an object. A per- 
son “sits” in a chair, but “sets” a lamp on a 
table; “lies” on a bed, but “lays” baby on a bed or 
“lays” himself down. “To learn” means to ac- 
quire knowledge; “to teach” means to impart 
knowledge. The distinction between Lie and 
Lay, Sit and Set, has always been recognized in 
the language. Not so the distinction between 


72 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


Learn and Teach. Shakespeare and other great 
writers often use Learn in the sense of Teach, 
e. g., “Your fly will learn you all games.” B. 
Jonson. 

108. The phrase “He was given leave of ab- 
sence” may probably be said to have acquired 
right of citizenship in the language. We have 
evidence that similar expressions were at an early 
period in use among the Latins, as we see in such 
verbs as Donor, from Do, to give : Rude donatus 
est, he was given a rod. Our phrase “Possessed 
of riches” is analogous. So is the phrase “I am 
told.” But though a few phrases like “He was 
given a situation” may have won admission into 
the category of allowable locutions, it does not 
follow that that formula is valid for all occasions. 
Hence we rightfully challenge such phrases as 
“Manufacturers were conceded special rates.” 
“He was given to understand” may, perhaps, pass 
muster. 

109. The only rational use of punctuation 
marks is to make sentences perspicuous and un- 
ambiguous. There is no fashion in punctuation 
that a writer is under obligation to respect. In 
drafting rules experience has proved that per- 
spicuity is better attained by parsimony than by 
liberality of punctuation. In the following sen- 
tences taken from newspapers, the comma, in- 


SYNTAX AND FOREIGNISMS. 73 

stead of making the sense perspicuous really per- 
verts it: “A big, popular loan”; without the com- 
ma the phrase would say a popular loan that is 
big; with the comma it means a big loan that is 
in favor with the people — a considerable differ- 
ence. “He wore his old, benevolent look” has 
the same defect. Macaulay is a model of consist- 
ent use of punctuation marks and parsimony in 
the employment of them. 

no. Anybody, however heedless in style, can 
see the inelegance of “Here where there is plenty”, 
“there are there plenty of opportunities.” Only 
one step removed from this in regard of uncouth- 
ness is the phrase “Here there are”, or “There are 
here.” 


B. FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 


hi. ENGLISH being a highly composite 
language with a vocabulary made up of elements 
from many diverse tongues, is hospitable to every 
stranger word that presents even only plausible 
credentials; though the dictionaries are bursting 
with the overabundance of words, there is ever 
room for one more. Had English in the past suf- 
fered the newcomers, as it too often suffers them 
to-day, to retain the inflexion forms of their 
original languages, the Anglic tongue would be 
incomparably more anomalous even than it is. 
There is in use among us a considerable number 
of words from foreign sources which not only are 
permitted to wear their garb of outlandish ac- 
cidence, but which are by customary law obliged 
to retain their foreign characters. The French 
language adopts a word from German or from 
English, and the next day it is unrecognizable 
when spoken in the hearing of those who speak 
its original language. But nowadays a word 
newly adopted into English out of Latin retains 
74 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 75 

in English its Latin accidence to a great extent; 
and the same is true of words derived from Ger- 
man, French, Italian, etc. Because the Lat. 
Bacillus has Bacilli plur., every writer and speaker 
of English, on pain of being writ down an igno- 
rant person, must say One bacillus, two bacilli; 
so, too, we must say One bacterium, a mass of 
bacteria. In German and in French the ter- 
minations of such words are lopped off, and what 
remains is treated as though it were German or 
French originally. But because we do not order 
matters in that commonsense way in English, 
such of us as are not conversant in all the lan- 
guages under the sun have painfully to learn the 
laws of grammatical accidence that obtain in the 
several languages from which the outlandish 
words are derived. A few of these laws here fol- 
low. 

1 12. (i) In words derived from Latin which 
have the termination Um, the plural form ends in 
a: Animalculum, animalcula (very few writers in- 
deed make the plural of this word as it ought to 
be — with termination a: almost universally the 
plural form is made Animalculae, and the true 
plural is taken to be singular — an animalcula). 
The plural of Candelabrum (accent on third syl- 
lable) is Candelabra (it is a vulgarism to say Can- 
delabras, plur., for Candelabra is already plural); 


76 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


of Aquarium Aquaria, Bacterium bacteria, 
Datum data (it is a solecism to treat data as 
singular), Stratum strata: and so on with all 
words of Latin or Greek origin ending in Urn or 
On (neuter). But if your Gr. word in On is not 
neuter, you will have to add a syllable or two to 
form the plural, e: g., Leon (lion) plur. leontes. 

1 13. (2) As a general rule words Latin or 
Greek ending in us (or Gr. os) become plur. by 
changing the termination to i, e. g. Radius radii, 
Bacillus bacilli. But not all Lat. ar.d Gr. words 
in us (os) form their plurals in that way, e. g. 
Genus, plur. genera, Viscus viscera, Rhinoceros 
rhinocerotes. 

1 14. (3) A noun singular ending in a (Gr. or 
Lat.) usually has the plur. in ae: Formula 
formulae. But there is in each language a large 
class of words in a which make the plural in ata: 
Poema (poem) poemata, Miasma miasmata. 
Plasma plasmata, Stigma stigmata. 

1 1 5. (4) There are Latin words in “us” which 
we treat in English as nouns singular, yet which in 
Lat. are neither nouns nor singular nor in the 
nominative case. Examples: Ignoramus, Manda- 
mus, Omnibus. Ignoramus and Mandamus are 
verbs, and the two words mean “We do not 
know”, and “We give order” respectively. Omni- 
bus is an adjective, and is in the plural but hi 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 


77 


one of the Latin “objective” cases. Many a 
writer presumed to be familiar with the Latin 
language has betrayed his entire ignorance of it 
by treating Ignoramus as in Latin a noun equiv- 
alent to Dunce, and giving it a nominative case 
plural, Ignorami: this was done in the editorial 
page of the Cincinnati “Commercial” a good 
many years ago, and the blunder has been re- 
peated often since. 

116. (5) Nouns ending in “is” and “es” usual- 
ly have the plur. in “es”; but some of them add 
a syllable or more, e. g., Limes (limit) plu. 
limites. 

1 1 7. The foregoing rules and remarks are not 
designed for lessons in Latin and Greek — only 
as helps toward the proper use of the Greek 
and Latin unnaturalized elements that exist in 
English. These are lessons not in Latin and 
Greek, but, strange to say, in English! They are 
not designed to enable the non-Latinist to handle 
Latin words with confidence : they are only exem- 
plifications of a few of the rules of Latin acci- 
dence to enable the reader to recognize the signs 
of the singular and plural number. In writing 
or speaking a person who is not entirely sure 
that his Lat. or Gr. word in “us” is a noun sin- 
gular forming its plural in “i” will do best by 
pluralizing in the English manner, adding “es,” 


78 PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

as Circus, circuses; and so with all other nouns 
or words used for nouns. Unless one knows 
well all the rules, with the exceptions, one is sure 
to make mistakes. For example, observing the 
rule that ‘’us” sing, becomes “i” plur., except 
certain words, e. g. genus, viscus (which take the 
termination “era” plur.), a person ignorant of the 
other rules would write the plur. of Apparatus 
apparati, Exercitus (army) exerciti; but those 
plurals would be incorrect, for these two words 
and a host of others have the plural nominative 
in the same form as the singular. Or again, 
coming upon the word Viscus (birdlime), 
would perhaps class it with Genus and that other 
Viscus and make the plur. Viscera. That would 
be an error, for Viscus, meaning birdlime, has 
plur. (if plur. it has at all) visci. 

118. The word Bravo has been fully natural- 
ized in English, and one would be justly re- 
garded finical who should censure the use of the 
word in that form in expressing admiration for 
the performance of, say, a female violinist; but in 
such a case an Italian or a Spaniard would say 
Brava, and in their mouth Bravo would be a 
solecism indeed. But it is different with Vir- 
tuoso (plur. virtuosi), which has a feminine form, 
Virtuosa (plur. virtuose). Incognito (unknown, 
not known for what one is) is perhaps like Bravo 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 


79 


sufficiently Englished to disregard its Italian in- 
flection (incogniti, incognita, incognite). Dilet- 
tante has but one form for both genders: plur. 
Dilettanti. French nouns commonly add s to 
the sing, termination to form the plural. In 
Russian, in Chinese (Mandarin dialect), in Maori, 
in Hottentot and the thousand and one other 
languages, dialects, patois, jargons, etc., which 
contribute of their vocabularies to English there 
are, of course, very hard and fast rules of gram- 
matical accidence which every “educated” Anglic 
person is presumed to know, but there is no room 
for them here. 

1 1 9. Phrases from foreign languages should 
never be ventured by any one who does not 
know either directly or “aliunde” just what they 
mean. That word Aliunde means “from other 
things” or from other sides or sources, as a 
lawyer would of necessity know the precise im- 
port of “aliunde” from seeing it used in decis- 
ions of courts, arguments of counsel, and treatises 
on testimony, even though he had not made a 
study of Latin. So nearly every intelligent 
speaker of English understands, aliunde, the pre- 
cise import of such a phrase as Habeas Corpus. 
But for one who has not had direct acquaintance 
with the Latin language, it is exceedingly risky 
to bandy Latin phrases. 


80 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


120. If a word or phrase in a foreign language 
expresses an idea more neatly than the same idea 
can be expressed in the vernacular save in a 
roundabout way, as exemplified in the sentence 
above explaining the meaning of Aliunde, then, 
provided the person addressed also knows what 
the foreign expression means, the same is to be 
preferred to a vernacular word or phrase. And 
on no other ground can the use, in speaking or 
in writing, of phrases from foreign languages be 
justified. Suppose the definition of Justice given 
in the Justinian Institutiones of the Civil law 
commends itself to you as far neater than Noah 
Webster’s, that would not excuse your quoting 
the Latin of the Institutiones for the “enlighten- 
ment” of a hearer who is wholly ignorant of Latin. 
It is the height of absurdity to quote passages in 
foreign languages to people who know only the 
vernacular, and then, in condescension to their 
ignorance, to give the passages in English. To 
indulge in such quotations in conversing with or 
addressing the less learned is to flaunt your as- 
sumed superiority over them quite as offensively 
and as vulgarly as Croesus flaunts his when he 
dazzles the town with his gorgeous equipages. 

12 1 . But there are so many words and phrases 
from foreign languages current in conversation 
and in the newspapers, that, understanding them 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 


81 


rightly or not, one can hardly avoid using them. 
There is the phrase “In petto.” Everybody uses 
it, but very few, indeed, use it in its proper sense. 
“In petto” is a quasi-technical term of the pontifi- 
cal court of Rome, and means literally “in the 
breast,” in secret, not divulged. “Coup de soleil” 
i few years ago was commonly used by English- 
speaking persons instead of sunstroke (we are 
now becoming so scientific that we say instead 
Thermic Fever). Who has not seen such a use 
of the French word Nee (acute accent over the 
first e) as this: “The Marquis of Lome, nee Camp- 
bell” — nee being supposed to mean “family 
name,” whereas it really means Bom, and being 
in the feminine gender cannot be used of a male 
person. 

122. When the Irish party in the British House 
« f Commons, fulfilling the prophecy of Grattan, 
had by their obstructive tactics and strategy 
made impossible the transaction of business under 
the ancient rules of that body, and the rule of the 
Previous Question had to be introduced, the 
method of limiting and closing debate got the 
French name of Cloture (circumflex accent over 
o, u pronounced as in French, accent mainly on 
the last syllable), to indicate how foreign to Eng- 
lish parliamentary proceeding any limitation of 
freedom of debate was. But common sense got 


82 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


the better of John Bull’s ridiculous squeamish- 
ness, and now he frankly, though no longer 
frenchily (he calls the operation now Closure, 
without any French frills), muzzles the minority 
when to him seems good. 

123. The phrase In partibus infidelium, like 
that ether, In petto, is generally misapplied and 
misunderstood. The general understanding of 
the phrase “bishop in partibus infidelium” is that 
it denotes a bishop whose actual field of labor is 
in a heathen or “infidel” country. But in fact 
the bishop in partibus infidelium may have his 
residence in Rome or Madrid: it may almost be 
said that he never is supposed to reside at his 
nominal see, or even to have visited it. It is 
purely a matter of title. The man is a sort of 
bishop by brevet, the brevet giving him episcopal 
precedence and the right to show episcopal in- 
signia, and on occasion to “pontificate” like a 
regular working bishop. But he has no diocese, 
no jurisdiction on the strength of the title; his 
bishopric is a castle in Spain. If such bishops 
exercise jurisdiction and perform episcopal func- 
tions in definite territories, those territories are 
never, or hardly ever, the territories designated 
by their episcopal style, as “Bishop of Curium/’ 
“Bishop of Carthage,” etc. In short, the bishop- 
rics in partibus infidelium are fictions of eccle- 
siastical law. 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 


83 


124. Tourist visitors to the chief city of France 
01. their return home will be heard to pronounce 
its name Paree, and the names of other French 
places also with an attempt at imitation of the 
French manner. It is not easy here to draw the 
line and to decide what is ridiculous affectation 
and what honest desire of correctness. But cer- 
tainly no line can rightly be drawn which shall in- 
clude Paris among the names of places to be 
pronounced (in speaking English) in the French 
way. The same is to be said of Brussels, Lyons, 
Marseilles. Even in the case of such a name as 
La Rochelle there is a French way of pronouncing 
that, and there is a non-French way: and the man 
who in speaking English should give the name 
in the French way would be reasonably suspected 
of aff< ctation. The safe rule would seem to be to 
pronounce the words about half-right. Here em- 
phatically virtus in medio: absolute correctness is 
a positive vice. 

125. It is a little singular that while people 
who perhaps cannot read understanding^ a line 
of French, will take great pains to pronounce “au 
revoir.” “embonpoint,” etc., as frenchily as pos* 
sible, they are incapable of noticing how their 
mispronunciation of pretty familiar words of a 
more nearly domestic origin (so to speak) mur- 
ders some very expressive phrases. How few of 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

those who use the word “blarney” have recog- 
nized the ineffable “comether,” the wheedling 
charm of that word as it is pronunced by the 
native Corkonian or the Munsterman to the man- 
ner be rn. The longdrawn “a” is no “Italian a’* 
nor “English a in Father”: it is the very flattest of 
a’s, and therein is the secret of its spell. Verily 
it is a word to conjure with. 

126. How ought the names of Germans, 
Frenchmen, Russians, Laplanders, Otaheitans, 
and so forth, to be pronounced by English-speak- 
ing persons? It is no affectation of superior 
knowledge if one studies to pronounce “half 
aright” such names as Rothschild (roteshilt), Sadi 
Carnot (sah-dee car-no) Faure (fore). But how 
should we pronounce the name, say, of Field Mar- 
shal Von Bluecher? Blootsher, or (“half-right”) 
Bleeker? One inclines to side with the “bloot- 
shers”; they have on their side tradition, almost 
universal Anglic usage, and. . . . Magna Tsharta! 
It is too late to try to get the doughty Field Mar- 
shaks name even half-right. To the Britons who 
were his companions in arms at Waterloo he was 
Blootsher, and what he was to them on that day 
is the only point touching him that was of in- 
terest then or subsequently. His counterpart- 
that-ought-to-have-been. Grouchy, is for English- 
speaking folk Growtshy. But in the case of our 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 


'85 


contemporaries the effort should be made to pro- 
nounce all “foreign” names half-way right. 

127. The reader may have noticed in the fore- 
going paragraph two different solutions of the 
problem, How to express the notion of “a per- 
sonal or family name originating in a language 
foreign to us.” In the first sentence it is solved by 
use of periphrasis — “names of Germans, French- 
men,” and so forth. In the last sentence it is 
solved by calling such names “foreign” between 
inverted commas. Neither solution is satisfac- 
tory; the first is awkward, the second is inade- 
quate, for we have no inverted commas in the 
spoken language. Wanted, a word, one word, 
which shall designate such a class of “foreign” 
names. It is absurd to say in America, peopled 
by natives of all Europe and their descendants, 
that Schmitz or O’Brien or Windischgraetz is a 
foreign name: they are no more foreign than 
Washington, Adams or Longfellow. Hence the 
inverted commas, as much as to say, Foreign so 
called. But as the problem w was one that might 
arise again, and which it was desirable to solve, a 
radical solution of it was sought; one word had 
to be found or newcoined to express the notion 
unequivocally. Such a term probably does not 
exist in the English vocabulary: at all events no 
search was made for it among English words. 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


Plainly, the desired word, the word to be made, 
must be compounded of Greek elements. Latin 
elements are even more refractory to compound- 
ing than English, German is not inferior to Greek 
in the agglutinativeness of its elements, but a word 
cc mpacted of Teutonic elements would be German 
still when made, not English. What was the 
concept to be expressed? A name originating in 
a different tongue from ours. The Greek for 
other or another is Alios, and for language Glossa. 
Put the two together and they are self-agglutina- 
ted. The word was already made, yes “already,” 
for on consulting the Greek dictionary to sse if 
perchance any one else possessed property in this 
“new compound” it was found entered to the 
credit of the Father of History (Herodotus) thus: 
“Alloglossos, of a strange or foreign tongue. 
Hdt. 2, 154.” Thus, copyright being barred, “Al- 
loglossic” is common property — rather say “com- 
mon good,” for “common” and “property” arie- 
tate and destroy each other. 

128. Why should a person writing in English 
consider it incumbent on him when naming a 
Frerehman to style him Monsieur (abbreviated 
AT.) So-and-So, and Monsieur’s wife as Mme., 
and their daughter Mdlle.? When any sound rea- 
son has been assigned for that curious practice, 
the further question arises, Why style Russians. 


FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH. 87 

and Germans in the same Frenchy way? M f 
de Nesselrode, even (before he became prince) 
M. de Bismarck? Usually in our news- 
papers every Italian of any note is Sig- 
nore, his wife Signora, Spaniards are Sen- 
ores, Portuguese Senhores. This is ab- 
surd. They manage this thing better in France. 
There a Yankee or an Englishman, German, 
Chinaman, or man of any other nation or race 
is Monsieur, and the other appellations or styles 
of address are bestowed duly in French, accord- 
ing to sex and age. To practice with entire con- 
sistency the ridiculous Anglic usage a person must 
be acquainted with the equivalents of Mr., Mrs. 
and Miss (these three at least) in the language of 
the person addressed, and that may easily involve 
the necessity of being acquainted with these nice- 
ties in thirty or forty languages. And, though 
one may not have occasion himself to use such 
r litanies he must be able to read and understand 
them in the newspapers. How is the unlearned 
reader to pronounce Mynheer, Myne Vrouw, and 
the daughter’s appellation, whatever that may be 
in the language of Paradise, Dutch? 


SECTION V. DERIVATION AND TRANS- 
FORMATION. 


130. BISHOR A curious and instructive view 
of the transformation words undergo in process 
of time and in their passage from language to lan- 
guage is had in the history of the word Episcopus, 
Lat. form of the Gr. Episkopos. Its etymological 
or original meaning is precisely Overseer; and 
there was a period in the history of Europe when 
the overseership of an Italian town was as near 
an approach to universal domination as the world 
has yet seen. Between Episkopos and Bishop 
there seems to be little in common, yet the one is 
a modified form of the other. The sh in ‘‘bishop” 
is only a softening of the sk in “episkopos”; hence 
“bishop” is equivalent to “biskop”, which has all 
the elements of the Gr. word except the termina- 
tion and the initial vowel. In the Gaelic language 
Episcopus becomes Espic, the initial e being re- 
tained, but the s transposed. The Scotch and 
Irish surname Gillespie is in Gaelic Gillespie, the 
bishop’s gillie or servant man. The French 
88 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 89 

“eveque” also retains the initial e, but drops the s, 
softens the labial p into the labial v, and repre- 
sents the k sound by qu. In Ital. vescovo, all the 
elements of episkopos except initial e are re- 
tained, but the two explosive labial^ (p) are 
changed to the surd labial v. In Spanish the 
two p’s arc softened to b and initial e changed to 
o: obisbo. The Portuguese form is bisbo: Ger. 
bischof, Swed. biscof, and Icel. biskup are seen 
also to retain the principal elements of the Greek 
word. 

1 31. Dunce. This word has a singular his- 
tory. For about three hundred years it has been 
used to denote a man of measureless stupidity. 
But for more than a hundred years previously 
Dunce or Duns meant a speculative philosopher 
of high intellectual acumen. Thus, the meaning 
has been exactly reversed, and white has become 
black. John Duns Scotus, a Schoolman of the 
J 14th century, and founder of the philosophical 
and theological school named after him, the Scot- 
ists, was master of all the learning and science of 
his time, and honestly earned the sobriquet Doc- 
tor Subtilis, master of subtleties. The lovers of 
the new learning in the period of the Renascence 
decried all the writings of the Schoolmen, and 
Duns Scotus, as representative of all that was 
considered most contemptible in scholasticism, 


90 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


was the principal object of their sarcasms. At the 
Reformation the defenders of the ancient religion, 
with their belated and antiquated scholastic modes 
of argumentation, were made the laughing stocks 
of the people as Dunses or Dunces. Neverthe- 
less, no scholar ever regarded the great School- 
men of the Middle Age — Albertus, Thomas Aqui- 
nas, Duns Scotus, as mentally obtuse: on the con- 
trary in intellectual acumen they were hardly in- 
ferior to their great master, Aristotle. 

132. The word Imbecility is hardly used now to 
express bodily infirmity, but only mental. In 
earlier English, as in Latin, whence it comes, the 
noun Imbecility (imbecillitas), and the adj. Im- 
becile (imbecillus) denoted physical as well as 
mental and moral weakness. Imbecile was also 
formerly used as a verb, and is still so used, but 
with slightly altered spelling and change of ac- 
cent, or rather retention of the earlier accent — em- 
1 bezzle. The steps from the Lat. original form to 
the sinister form embezzle were these: Imbecillus, 
imbecille (accent on second syllable), imbecill 
(verb), imbezill (verb), imbezzle, embezzle. The 
change in meaning took place in the verb in this 
wise: Imbecill, to weaken, then to waste or squan- 
der (as an estate, so weakening it); then to take 
from a treasure or the like intrusted to one’s keep- 
ing; finally, to appropriate fraudulently. If the 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 91 

usually received derivation of Lat. Imbecillus is 
the true one, Imbecile meant originally ‘‘leaning 
on a staff,’’ in bacillum. The Eng. noun is often 
spelt with two l’s — Imbecillity. 

133. Idiot. This word also has a curious his- 
tory. It is from Gr. Idiotes, the primary mean- 
ing of which is, person in private station, as dis- 
tinguished from the man in official or political 
place. The secondary significance of Idiotes in 
classic Greek are: Private soldier, plebeian, lay- 
man (as opposed to professional man), prose- 
writer (as opposed to poet) ; one untrained or un- 
skilled and hence rude, uncultured, awkward, 
ignorant. The fashion of speech and deportment 
of the common people, the vulgar, is Idiotismos, 
idiotism, vulgarism. But Idiotismos never de- 
noted in classic Greek Idiocy, nor did any word 
formed from Idios or from Idiotes ever signify in 
that language any lower degree of mentality than 
boorishness, clownishness. Passing into Latin, 
Idiotes there became Idiota, meaning an unedu- 
cated, ignorant person. Thence migrating into 
English it held for a little while that sense, and 
even its original Greek meaning, thus, Jeremy 
Taylor (d. 1667) writes: “Idiots or private per- 
sons.” But for Blackstone Idiot is a synonym 
of “natural fool” or “one that hath no understand- 
ing from his nativity.” 


92 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


134. Verse. Etymologically a line of prose is 
as truly a verse as is a metric or poetical line. 
Verse (Lat. versus) means a turning — turning 
from the end of one line to the beginning of the 
next. It is better to call a line of poetry a verse 
than a line. The reasons of the derivative mean- 
ings of Verse are obvious, as when Verse means 
metrical composition, or a short subdivision of a 
chapter, or a stanza, or a poem. 

1 35. Quick has gone out of use in its original 
sense of living, having life; rapid, and prompt to 
act, arc the senses in which the word is now 
mostly used. To understand the phrases “stung 
to the quick,” “cut to the quick,” that is, to the 
sensitive nerves, one needs to be acquainted with 
the etymological meaning of Quick. Quicksilver 
is silver that is “alive”; Quicksand is sand that is 
alive, having apparently a movement of its own. 
More of the original sense remains in the verb 
Quicken than in the adjective. 

136. Miscreant illustrates in its derivative 
meanings the prejudice with which we regard 
those who differ with us in matters of religious 
belief. Etymologically it means, One who be- 
lieves amiss, one that is heterodox — “amiss** 
meaning in the wrong way, i. e., a way different 
from our way; and “Heterodox” (Gr. hetera, the 
other; doxa, opinion) meaning adherent to an 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 93 

opinion which is not ours: for our opinion is still 
orthodoxy, yours is heterodoxy. Soon, or simul- 
taneously, Miscreant means “vile wretch, scoun- 
drel, detestable villain.” Probably the vocabu- 
laries of the ancient Greeks and Latins would be 
searched in vain for a single instance of a word 
denoting only difference of opinion putting on 
the meaning of “outlaw, villain.” 

137. In English, words that have had that for- 
tune are numerous. Renegade is one who has re- 
canted his religious creed: for that reason solely 
and purely a Renegade is “a worthless, aban- 
doned fellow, false and traitorous.” It would 
seem to be only a beneficent exer.Le of the pow- 
er of life and death if society, the state, should 
order to the stake or at least to the gibbet, all 
such worthless, vile, detestable creatures. No 
more impressive lesson on the danger of Prejudice 
can be found than might be taught by a catalogue 
of words like Renegade, Miscreant. 

138. Obtain means primarily hold, maintain. 
Intransitively in this sense it means to hold the 
ground, to be in possession, as “The belief ob- 
tains.” The etymology of the word is decisive on 
this point. Obtineo, to obtain in Latin, is from 
ob (against), teneo (hold), hence to hold for its 
own. Secondarily, it means to get possession, 
and this is almost exclusively its meaning in Eng- 


94 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


lish, the only remnant of the primary meaning 
being the use of Obtain in such phrases as the 
one given above. 

139. Economy, Political Economy. The ety~ 
mological meaning of Econmy is Housekeep- 
ing or management of a household. It is from 
Or. Oikos (house) and Nomos (rule, law, admin- 
istration). Hence though frugality (in the re- 
ceived narrow sense of that word, viz., saving) is 
an essential part of Economy or household man- 
agement, it is not its predominant note. Wise 
direction of domestic servants is as truly and es- 
sentially a part of Economy as is frugality. Polit- 
ical Economy is also a Greek phrase in both its 
parts. But under any of the cmrmt definitions 
of “political” Political Economy seems a mis- 
n> mer. “Political” means “pertaining to the 
state,” and Household Management” (oikonomia) 
realized in the state is simply Government in all 
its departments. If such a thing as Political 
Economy in any sense justified by the etymology 
of its terms existed, every interest of the people, 
state, or “polis” would come within its purview, 
and the state or government would not be merely 
a statistician of manufactures, trade, and com- 
merce, nor simply a judge to determine questions 
of property or rights between non-public parties, 
nor merely a policeman to maintain the peace, but 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 95 

would be all in all in the body politic. The cur- 
rent view of Political Economy may be consistent 
with “public” economy in a loose sense, but in no 
sense consistent with the notion of “political’' 
household management. The old Roman ex; res- 
sion for government, Res Publica, involves t ie 
idea of Political Economy in its widest, i. e., its 
true sense; and if in a “republic” any interest of a 
public nature is taken out of the category Res 
Publica, that republic is so far an oligarchy. 

140. Blaspheme with its derivates is from Gr. 
Blasphemeo, to revile. In Greek the word has 
no special theological signification, and the Greek 
who wished to say that a man is guilty of Blas- 
phemy in a sense analogous to that which we give 
to the word, would have to define the term Blas- 
phemy by adding “eis theous” against the gods. 
The word comes to us through the Vulgate from 
the Greek Testament. But with form strangely 
altered it descended to us through the French 
language also. Thus we have in our English 
two lineages of words from the Gr. Blasphemeo 
(v), Blasphemia (n). One of these lineages might 
well be called the legitimate, and the other the 
illegitimate progeny. As has already been said, 
the legitimate line clings to the theological sense 
given to Blasphemia in the New Testament; 
nevertheless, some grecizing English writers ap- 


96 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


pear to have used the word Blasphemy in the sense 
of revilement or slander. Thus does the word “re- 
vert,” as the Darwinists sav, “to the ancestral 
form”; it is a ca.se of “atavism.” The atavistic 
“sport,” however, had little vitality, and it is as 
good as extinct now. Contrariwise the illegiti- 
mate line ; that appears to have reverted to the an- 
cestral stock very early, and it is still in vigorous 
condition. Therein it repeats the phenomenon 
not unfrequently seen in human stocks, the ille- 
gitimate progeny shoving strong vitality whi e the 
legitimate is puny. This illegitimate line had its 
rise in the Norman French verb Blasmer 
(contr. of blasphemer), Fr. blamer (circumflex 
over a) : its Eng. form is Blame. The meaning of 
Blame is the same as Gr. Blasphemeo, Blais- 
phemia, but less strong: not revising, but finding 
fault, censuring. The illegitimate line is incom- 
parably more fertile of compound and derivative 
forms than the legitimate. 

141. Ecstasy. When we say, He was beside 
himself, we use a phrase involving the same 
metaphor which is found in Ecstasy. Ecstasy in 
the sense of Trance comes to us from the Greek 
of the New Testament: the Greek classic writers 
appear to have used the word ekstasis only in the 
sense of transport of rage or excess of Terror. 
Whether in the “good” sense of Trance or 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 97 


the “bad” sense of Fit of rage, the fun- 
damental and etymological meaning of the 
word is Displacement, and in particular Displace- 
ment of the mind or senses: one “stands outside 
himself’ (stasis, a standing, ex or exo, without). 
Ecstasy is of course often used to express very in- 
ferior degrees of mental exaltation, but it is still 
employed to denote the very highest state of Rap- 
ture. It is one of the very few words in our lan- 
guage that with age have assumed a larger and a 
nobler sense than they had in their original 
tongues. 

142. Slander and Scandal are variant forms of 
the Gr. New Testament word Skandalon. The 
original meaning of Skandalon is “the stick which 
carries the bait in a trap”; then Skandalon de- 
noted the trap itself. But according to Liddell 
and Scott’s lexicon, in the New Testament the 
word means “stumbling block, offense.” In the 
authorized version of the New Testament it is 
translated everywhere “offense.” But etymologi- 
cally that word offense is synonymous with 
stumbling block, i. e., it denotes an occasion of 
stumbling in the moral sense, of causing moral 
lapses. Hence Scandal (and offense in the New 
Testament) does not mean offense in the vulgar 
or common acceptation of Offense — giving um- 
brage, causing displeasure. Nevertheless, such 


98 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


is the meaning usually read into both words, as 
is proved by all the derivative senses of Scandal 
and offense, and the whole history of the word 
Slander. The native figurative meaning of the 
New Testament Gr. verb skandalizo is “to lead or 
tempt into evil by bad example.” The pedigree 
of Slander (v. and n.) is as follows: Lat. scanda- 
lum, old Fr. esclandre (n.), slander. 

143. Calumny, challenge. These two words are 
also variant forms of one original, Calumnia, Lat. 
Calumny, since it entered our language has 
not, in that form, varied in meaning one whit 
from the Latin, as is made evident by the very 
unusual and almost unique fact that only one 
meaning is given it in a very voluminous dic- 
tionary. But in another form the word which 
was in Latin. Calumnia (n.) and Calumniari (v.) 
takes on unexpected meanings. Here is the 
genealogical tree of the very curious word chal- 
lenge ; Lat. Calumniari, to calumniate, Ital. calog- 
nare, Old Span, calonjar, Old Fr. calenger, chal- 
onger, chalenger, Old Eng., calangen, chalangen ; 
challenge. And the meanings of Challenge (v.) 
in English, given presumably in historic sequence 
are : 1 to blame, 2 to claim as a right or due, 3 to 
invite to a duel, 4 to invite to controversy, 5 to call 
in question the accuracy of a statement, 6 to call 
to the performance of a duty, or promise. There 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 99 


is the chain, or at least some links of a chain. A 
few links would seem to be missing ; the pedigree 
is badly mutilated. 

144. Emery is from Gr. Smyris, having come to 
us from the lips of people who were unable or 
reluctant to pronounce the combination sm at the 
beginning of words. Very often the difficulty is 
overcome by dropping the s, as we see in smelt, 
melt; quite as often by prefixing a vowel, as Es- 
meralda (Span.) from Gr. Smaragdcn ; or by put- 
ting e in place of s, as in Emery, Emerald. The 
reverse operation appears also, some races hav- 
ing a predilection for the combination sm: thus 
Gr. Myrrha is in some dialects smyrrha, Mikros, 
smikros. 

145. Clergy, Clerk, Clerical. Everyone knows 
that these three words are from one root, and 
that Clerk (in England pronounced dark) had 
once the same significance as Clergyman, the 
phrase “Clerk in orders ” meaning a clergyman 
who has been “ordained” by a bishop. It might 
seem tautological to add to Clerk (clergyman) the 
phrase “in orders”, and so indeed, it is, for it is 
“order” that makes the clergyman now. But the 
phrase is a survival from times when Clergy de- 
noted the status of a man who has taken the first 
step in the ecclesiastical career, who has received 
Tonsure, a rite in the Roman Church disused in 


100 


PITFALLS IN ENGLIS 


the English Establishment. Tonsure is not 
“order,” but the tonsured man was Clerk, of the 
Clergy, though not yet Clerk in Orders: he was 
Simple Clerk (simplex clericus). Even after the 
tonsured man had been initiated in as many as 
four “orders” (minor orders, distinguished from 
“sacred orders,” Diaconate, Priesthood, and from 
the Subdiaconate, which is not held by all theo- 
logians to belong to the “sacred” category) he 
was not yet Clerk in Orders, for in that phrase 
“orders” means “sacred orders.” The root of the 
matter we have in the Gr. word Kleros (Lat. cler- 
us), meaning Lot, Portion of an Inheritance. 
How Clerus came to mean Clergy as dis- 
tinguished from Laity (Gr. Laos, people) was on 
this wise. The body of ministers, preachers and 
teachers in the Christian Church was at an early 
period of the Church’s history, if not indeed from 
the beginning, regarded as a distinct order, of 
divine institution, a priestly and levilical order of 
which the Aaronic priesthood and the levites were 
a type and a figure. And as “the Lord spake 
unto Aaron ... I am thy part and thine in- 
heritance” — in the Septuagint Kleronomia 
(Numb., 18, 20); and as (Deut. 18, 2) it was pro- 
vided that the tribe of Levi should “have no in- 
heritance (kleros) among their brethren,” for “the 
Lord is their inheritance” (kleros): so in Chris- 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 

tendom the sacerdotal order is supposed to have 
“the Lord for their inheritance”, and the word for 
inheritance became the name of their whole body. 
When a man is inducted into Clergy by the rite 
of Tonsure in the Roman Catholic Church he 
pronounces from one of David’s Psalms (16, 5) 
the words, Dominus pars haereditatis meae et 
calicis mei, The Lord is the portion of mine in- 
heritance and of my cup. 

146. Ethics. It is not by accident that in 
Greek, Latin, German, and the languages de- 
rived from them — indeed, perhaps, in all lan- 
guages — the terms used to designate the notion 
Morals or Morality, all mean etymologically Cus- 
tom, Usage, Habitude. The Gr. word Ethos 
(plur. ethea or ethe), whence Ethics, seems origi- 
nally to have signified accustomed seat or abode, 
haunts of beasts, then haunts of men. Its gen- 
eral meaning was custom, usage. The original 
meaning of Lat. Mos (plur. Mores) whence 
Morals, would seem to be manner, custom, 
way, without any connotation of “moral law.” 
The Ger. Sitte (plur. sitten) also means 
originally Custom, manner, usual way. If his- 
tory and geographical exploration had not taught 
us that Morality varies, and ever lias varied ac- 
cording to latitude and longitude, the aspects of 
nature, and man’s physical, mental, and economic 


102 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


surroundings, Language is there, like the geologic 
formations of past ages, to demonstrate the truth. 
Viewed simply as a question of language quite 
apart from ideas (if the supposition were conceiv- 
able) the expression “absolute ethics” is a con- 
tradiction of terms, being comparable to such an 
expression as Unconditioned Conditioned or 
Conditioned Absolute. In the domain of mor- 
als nations have acted toward foreign nations as 
they have acted in the domain of language. The 
Greeks and Romans called the nations whose 
languages they could not understand Jabberers, 
or, as they expressed it, Barbari : those languages 
were for the Greeks no languages at all. Of 
course, the Customs of the Barbari were, in the 
eyes of the Greeks, unethic, immoral. For us the 
Ethic of the ancient Hellenes is immoral. To 
the unlettered English-speaking person the lan- 
guage of Dante sounds like gibberish: in the 
eyes of the insular John Bull the customs of “the 
Continent” are highly immoral. 

147. In Squirrel little is left of the original 
form of the singularly poetic name of the blithe 
little creature, in Greek, Skiuros, shadow-tail. But 
perhaps “it is a mercy” that the innumerable 
metaphors and other incidental beauties of lan- 
guage have lost their life and color, else we might 
be so beguiled by the panorama unrolled before 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 103 

our eyes in the picturesque words that we should 
be unable to attend to the subject-matter of any 
discourse. 

148. Atonement is a curious word. First, it 
consists of the two Eng. words At and One (“at 
one” meaning reconciled) and the termination 
“ment.” The word meant exactly reconcilement. 
But straightway it assumed a secondary mean- 
ing, Expiation, which in common usage has quite 
driven the original meaning out. It is an awk- 
wardly constructed word, and in its original sense 
there was no need for it, for the language already 
possessed Reconciliation 'and Reconcilement. 
Then, if a new word must needs be contrived 
would not Onement (pron. i-ment) have been 
verv much better that at-one-ment? But there 
was a Saxon verb “to one”, and an equally genuine 
Saxon verbal noun Oneing. The transforma- 
tion of meaning from reconcilement to expiatory 
sacrifice is very curious but not unique: there is, 
perhaps, no phenomenon of growth, develop- 
ment, or change in any language but finds a 
parallel in all others. In Latin the word Religio 
has about the same meaning as Religion with us; 
but among the Romans “religio” was used almost 
as a technical expression for violation of religion, 
and strange to say the word in the meanwhile 
never lost its original signification of respect for 


104 PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 

the gods. A like use of a word in two directly 
opposite senses is seen in the adjective Sacer 
(sacred, but also accurst). In Greek, Anathema 
meant “votive offering”; but in the Greek of the 
New Testament the same word means always a 
thing accurst And though in the Septuagint 
the verb Anathematizo means “to devote”, “to 
consecrate”, in the New Testament it means only 
“to curse”. 

149. Welter. This word is used now only in 
the phrase “weltering in his blood”. As with the 
word Reeking in the phrase “Reeking with filth”, 
it is probable that few of those who use the word 
Weltering have any conception of its meaning. 
See Reeking, par. 52. Welter (v.) means to 
roll, kick, sprawl, etc., as a stuck pig; to wallow. 
It is co-radical with Ger. Waelzen (v.) which has 
the same meanings. From Waelzen comes the 
name of a manner of dancing, so called — the 
Waltz: quasi Wallow-dance; or if that mode of 
forming a word is not according to the principles 
of English etymology, then the Wallowing- 
Dance. The verb Wallow has no necessary im- 
plication or connotation of mire or filth to roll or 
toss in. Wiclef’s translation of the passage in 
Matthew’s Gospel, which tells of the rolling of a 
stone into the entrance to Jesus’ sepulchre has, 
He walewide (wallowed) a gret stoon to the dore 
of the biriel and went awav. 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 105 


150. Deal as used at the card table and Deal 
in the phrase “a great deal” are one word. It 
is of the same origin as Ger. Teil, and originally 
had the same meaning; viz. Part. Hence to deal 
was to divide; and when cards are dealt they are 
divided into portions. Dealer would seem to be 
equivalent to Retailer. In single combat one 
combatant does not deal blows on (to) the other, 
for he gives them all to him. It is different in 
battle: there the warior deals his blows and 
thrusts impartially to (on) all the foes that come 
within his reach. The phrase “he writes a deal” 
is not equivalent, etymologically, to “he writes a 
great deal.” The first time that “a deal” was writ- 
ten or spoken in the sense of “much” the expres- 
sion was a solecism : it is still a faulty phrase, and 
is to be rejected, whatever authority it may ap- 
pear to have in usage. Crabb (Diet, of Syno- 
nyms) says: “Deal always denotes something 
great.” That is not so, as the almost invariable 
custom of adding “great” to it to give it magni- 
tude clearly proves. Crabb’s remark confirms 
what was said in Section I. of the dying out of 
the tradition of Anglosaxon etymology among 
the English people after the conquest. 

15 1. Particle means in the literal sense a min- 
ute portion of a material substance and figura- 
tively a very small part, a point, of things not 


106 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


material: as we say, He has not a particle of 
honor. But the negative phrase, Not a particle, 
is often used improperly as though it were at all 
points synonymous with that other, Not at all: 
e. g., Are the streets muddy to-day? Not a 
particle. Were you hurt by the fall? Not a 
particle. 

152. Decimation, among the ancient Romans, 
was the selecting by lot from a corps of mutinous 
soldiers or from a vanquished enemy every tenth 
man for capital punishment. Hence the proper 
meaning of Decimate (v.) is to destroy one in 
every ten. In a loose sense it is used to signify 
slaying a large number. The idea of one of 
every ten, inherent in the word (decern, ten, deci- 
mus, tenth) must never be lost, from sight when 
we speak of decimating. It would be absurd to 
say, The army was utterly (or terribly) decimated : 
“literally” would be the right word. If either a 
much smaller or a much larger proportion than 
ten per cent, is destroyed, the killing is not a 
Decimation. If we must have a word in “ation”, 
we may say Quindecimation (one in fifteen), 
Quintation (one in five), Octavation (one in eight), 
and so on. 

153. Singular, as long as it was used in its 
etymological sense, meant precisely what Unique 
means, viz., alone in its kind of excellence. As 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 107 

late as Addison’s time it had that signification : 
“These busts . . . are all very scarce, and 

some of them almost singular in their kind.” In- 
stead of “almost singular” one would incline now 
to say “most singular”, a phrase impossible in 
Addison’s day. With the radical Single, meaning 
One only, before their eyes, , it is unaccountable 
that educated writers should have so weakened 
the import of Singular as to make it mean only 
Extraordinary. But its native import is clean 
gone, and one needs a glossary to-day to tell 
him what the word means in an author of less 
than 150 years ago. The using of Singular in the 
sense of Unusual only adds one more to a string 
of synonyms already overlong, leaving a vacancy 
that had to be filled with that “almost singular” 
word Unique. How long till that, too, shall join 
the majority. When it does somebody will, per- 
haps, invent the form “oneic.” 

154. Scruple is from Lat. Scrupulus, which 
means a small, sharp or pointed pebble, such as 
might get into one’s shoe, causing more or less 
annoyance. In a metaphorical sense the Romans 
used the word to signify uneasiness, discomfort, 
worry. Among moralists it came to mean 
anxious hesitation about the righteousness of an 
act or course of conduct, and in particular worry 
of conscience without reasonable cause. It is not 


108 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


a desirable nor a commendable state of con- 
science, being too near allied to hypochondria: 
it is a lamentable weakness and not at all a virtue. 
Scruple and scrupulousness have this meaning 
everywhere, and such is their definition in dic- 
tionaries. Nevertheless, when the epithet Un- 
scrupulous is applied to a man the probability 
is that the intention is to accuse him of total 
lack of moral principle. And the phrase “with- 
out scruple” is employed by the best writers in the 
sense of “Remorselessly”, thus Macaulay: “He 
broke through the most sacred ties without scruple 
or shame”, where, of course, Scruple must mean 
“regard to right of duty”. It cannot mean there 
nicety, or tenderness, or timorousness of consci- 
ence. 

155. Starve is the same word as Ger. Sterben, 
and long had the same signification, to Die. 
Chaucer has, He that starf for our redemption 
(starf, died). The phrase, To starve for cold, is 
still in use. And when Shakespeare writes, The 
air hath starved the roses in her cheeks, he means 
of course “hath killed.” Milton uses Starve in the 
same sense: To starve in ice their soft ethereal 
warmth. The word Starvation was first used in 
1775, and though it is a mongrel vocable, it very 
soon found acceptance as expressing in one word 
“the extremity of destitution, extreme suffering 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. 109 

from the want of food”. Misere in French can- 
not express greater destitution than “the ex- 
tremity”, yet Prof. Huxley seems to take some 
credit for Anglosaxondom that there is no word in 
English capable of expressing the full meaning 
of la misere. If la misere denotes and connotes, 
besides extreme hunger, cold also, so does 
Starvation; if rags, so does Starvation; if 
depravation of human feelings and instincts, 
so does Starvation; if huddling and pig- 
ging, so does Starvation. In the face of La 
Misere, as of Starvation, the decencies of life 
vanish, and man is a mere animal, but not a 
noble animal. The vowel change seen in Ster- 
ben, Starve, is very common, e. g. Ger. Stern, 
Eng. Star, clerk, dark, learn, larn, Vernon, Var- 
num and Barnum. 

156. Contagion. If Lat. Contagium and Eng, 
Contagion had continued to be what they origi- 
nally were, “indifferent”, i. e., signifying mere con- 
tact, with the effects of contact both good and 
evil, we should be using the phrase, “Contagion 
of good example”; and a very true and forceful 
phrase it would be. But just as we have ten thou- 
sand words to denote our physical and mental dis- 
eases and troubles, but very few indeed to denote 
the opposite favorable conditions, so it is with re- 
gard to our terminology to express the influence 


110 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


of good and bad example. Nor is the defect in 
our terminology alone: it exists in our thoughts 
— indeed, how could it be in the terminology had 
it not been first in the thoughts? Of the con- 
tagiousness of bad example no one doubts: how 
few there are who have faith in the contagious- 
ness of good, of virtue. And yet if the good is 
not very much more powerful than the evil the 
human race were lost long ago. It would be a 
gain if we could import into our language and 
into our thoughts the notion of a powerful con- 
tagion of virtue. The worst Pessimism of all is 
to despair of the contagion of the good. 

157. Assassin. This word is by some etymolo- 
gists derived from the name of Hassan ben 
Sabah, founder of the militant religious order 
of the Hashishin (Assassins); more probable is 
the derivation from Hashish, an inspissated de- 
coction of hemp. The Hashishin, like desper- 
adoes in some Oriental lands to-day, used to pre- 
pare for the commission of deeds of daring by 
drinking of the hashish liquor. As the taking of 
hashish even in considerable quantity and habitu- 
ally, does not appear to have that effect on men 
of European race, it is highly probable that the 
reckless fury of the Hashishin, supposed to be 
inspired by hashish, was, in fact, a result of what 
is called by hypnotists and mesmerists Sugges- 


DERIVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. Ill 

tion, or more specifically, Self-Suggestion (in 
French Auto-Suggestion). Certainly the state 
produced by hashish in many respects resembles 
hypnotic trance. The person who is in hypnotic 
or in mesmeric trance executes the commands 
given to him, whatever they may be, if only they 
be physically possible. Probably when the 
trance state is produced by the use of the drug, 
suggestion may have a like effect. 

158. Rase and Raze (verbs), pronounced alike 
though spelt differently, are one word, from the 
Lat. verb Rado (participle rasus), to scrape. 
Razor has the same origin. In that fact we have 
a measure of the vainglory of the male human 
biped in primordial times before razor knives 
were invented; for the feminine anatomy suffers 
not so much from tight-laced stays and baby- 
sized boots as those primitive dandies suffered 
from the scrapers of flint, or, perhaps, the pumice 
rubbers with which thev subdued the scraggy 
stubble of their beard. Erase and Razee have the 
same origin as Rase. 

159. Ambuscade is exactly equivalent in ety- 
mology to Bushwhacking. The very word Bush 
exists in both, though in Ambuscade it has the 
Romanic form of Busco or Bosco, but in Bush- 
whacking the Teutonic form Bush or Busch. 
Ambuscade is defined to be “a military device”, 


112 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


a stratagem of what is styled “honorable warfare”. 
The same definition stands for Ambush. Bush- 
whacking or Bushwhackery gets probably a very 
different definition. 


SECTION VI. FALSE LIGHTS. 


160. HERE are a few words that hang out 
False Lights to the unwary or ignorant etymolo- 
gizer, thus luring him into shallows where he 
suffers shipwreck of what little store of knowl- 
edge of the Mothertongue he had from nature or 
nurture. Better steer by dead reckoning than by 
such jack o’ lanthorn lights. These instances of 
ridiculous etymologies have an interest for us 
historically, for until comparatively recent times 
even the learned assigned to words derivations 
as absurd as those suggested by such words as 
“Egg on”, “Nag”, etc. 

161. Explode. When we speak of Exploding 
a fallacy or a story, the word Explode is used 
metaphorically, but the metaphor is a transfer- 
ence of a notion not from gunnery or from blast- 
ing’. but from the theatre. An audience in a 
theatre expresses satisfaction or approval by 
plaudits, i. e., by hand clapping, stamping, shout- 
ing, and the like, and plaud is from Lat. plaudo. 
That verb, compounded with Ex (out) and the 
diphthong au changed to o, gives Explodo, “to 


114 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


plaudit out” or off the stage: to drive the actors 
off the stage by noisjy demonstrations. But 
usage will, no doubt, finally displace this ancient 
metaphorical meaning of Explode aud substitute 
for it the notion of planting an explosive cart- 
ridge under a story, under a “campaign lie” for 
example, and blowing it to pieces. 

162. Curate, Cure of Souls. By an obvious 
process the verb Cure (Lat. euro, from the same 
original source as Anglosaxon caru, anxiety), 
which meant primarily to care for, as a physician 
does, or a nurse, came to denote making whole 
or healing, that being what is expected of the 
leech, and what he is supposed to do. (And 
obiter be it noted that Leech, term denoting Phy- 
sician, is a sort of False Light, for one is tempted 
to derive it from the name of a worm of the 
bloodsucking kind. But the fact is otherwise. 
The word etymologically belongs to the Phy- 
sician: the figurative use of it is its application 
to Iiirudo medicinalis, “the Doctor”). To the 
honor of the medical profession it must be con- 
fessed that in all probability the change in the 
meaning of Cure, from Caring to Healing or 
making whole, was not effected by practicers of 
the healing art, but by their ignorant clients: 
even so, too, the redoubtable portent of priest- 
craft is the work of ignorance and superstition 


FALSE LIGHTS 


115 


in the people rather than of lust of power on the 
part of their religious guides. For the people 
love to be humbugged — populus vult decipi : and 
the priest can only say Amen, decipiatur — hum- 
bugged let them be. Cure of souls means Care 
of souls; and Curate means one charged with a 
care of souls. In French the etymological equiv- 
alent of Curate is Cure (acute accent on the e, 
Lat. Curatus), but in Italian and Spanish the 
word is Cura (literally Care, so called as we call 
petty magistrates and high judges Justices). But 
whereas in English use Curate means assistant 
rector of a parish, the French etymological 
equivalent means Rector, Parish Priest. The em- 
ployment of the word Curate as designation of 
the assistant “crystallizes” a whole history of 
simonies. It is reminiscent of a state of things 
in which one man had all the honors and emolu- 
ments of a church benefice, while a pittanced lo- 
cum tenens or substitute had all the work and 
all the care. 

162. Adust. This word might easily be mis- 
taken for a compound of the order of Awry, 
Acold, Alone; but it is no Anglosaxon word at 
all, but Latin, nor has it anything to do with 
Dust, being the^past participle of the verb Aduro 
(to burn), Adustus. Milton applies the epithet 
Adust to air; 


116 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


And vapor as the Libyan air adust, 

Began to parch that temperate clime. 

He also uses Adust as a verb: 1 Concocted and 
adusted. 

163. Tinsel etymologically has nothing to do 
with Tin. It is out of Lat. Scintilla (accent on 
second syllable) through Fr. etincelle, both mean- 
ing a spark. Scintillare (Lat.) etinceler (Fr.) to 
sparkle. In English Tinsel meant originally a 
cloth shot with threads of silver or gold. 

164. Broil, Embroil. Between these and Broil 
in the sense of roasting over hot coals there is 
no etymological relation. Broil (v.) comes into 
English from French, and there has the form 
Brouiller, meaning to entangle, to jumble; to 
mix confusedly. A Broil is a tumult; a scrim- 
mage, a disturbance. To embroil is to put in a 
Broil, to tangle, to confuse, to involve in a quar- 
rel or tangle of dissentient opinions. Imbroglio 
is Italian for embroilment or broil. 

165. Humble Bee. Humble is a False Light. 
The Humble Bee is no lowlier than the Italian 
Bee. Her name ought to be written Hummel 
Bee or Bumble Bee, for it is a name that imitates 
the hurtling if the Bee in her flight. The Lat. 
name of insects of the genus to which this bee 
belongs is also imitative, viz., Bombus: so, too, 


FALSE LIOHT'S. 


117 


are the French and German names, viz., Hum- 
mel and Bourdon. 

1 66. Wiseacre is etymologically the same word 

as Ger. Weissager, prophet, soothsayer. At one 
time it was in good repute in English, and meant 
Wiseman, man of learning, philosopher: e. g., 
Pythagoras lemed muche . . . becomming a 

myghtye wysacre. 

167. Egg (v.) and Edge would seem to be the 
same word, the hard palatal g of Egg being soft- 
ened in Edge. Allied words in German are Eck 
(corner), Ecke (edge, angle), ecken (to border). 
From the same common root are Gr. ake and 
akis (point, spear, edge), Lat. Acies (edge), Lat. 
Acus (needle), Lat. Acuo (to sharpen, whence 
Acutus, pointed, Eng. Acute, Acumen, etc.). The 
meaning of the verb Egg or Egg on is, there- 
fore, to goad, to prick. 

168. Necromancy was a False Light to our 
medieval forbears. It came to be called Black 
Art through a confounding of the first two syl- 
lables, Necro (dead, Gr.) with Nigro (black, Lat.), 
the result being Nigromancy, the Black Divina- 
tion. The Gr. word Nekromanteia means Divina- 
tion by the Dead, namely by responses from the 
departed (nekroi). But Nigromancy (nigro- 
mantia) is divination by “the Blacks”. Trench 
quotes from a vocabulary of the 15th century, 


118 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH, 


Nigromantia dicitur divinatio facta per nigros, 
Nigromancy is the name of divination done by 
the blacks, i. e., by daemons or Devils. 

169. Nag (v.) is only another and stronger form 
of Gnaw, used in a metaphorical sense. The 
same form of word being used to designate a 
sorry horse that needs much urging with whip, 
stick, and spur, the verb Nag doubtless passes 
with many for a verbal use of the noun. The 
Ger. Nagen (v.) is the exact equivalent of Gnaw: 
like Gnaw it means only Nibble, but not teasing, 
ceaseless fault finding, etc. The noun Nag 
(horse) is possibly an imitative word from Neigh, 
in which word the guttural indicated by gh was 
formerly sounded. 

170. Wedlock. The last syllable of this word, 
and the idea of marriage being a Bond and the 
bethrothed being Handfast, are likely to sug- 
gest the notion of bolts or locks. But the “lock” 
in Wedlock signifies delight, pleasure, a gift in 
token of pleasure: it is reminiscent of the ancient 
practice of giving to the bride a gift on the morn- 
ing after the marriage. 

1 71. Porcupine. When one sees this word 
spelt Porkpine in some old author, one might 
perhaps suspect a vulgar error and a False Light 
comparable to what we see in “sparrowgrass” for 
Asparagus. (Obiter. The French have also got 


FALSE LIGHTS. 


119 


out of “asparagus” a False Light word — asperges, 
which is also the name of the sprinkler with 
which a priest besprinkles a congregation with 
“holywater”). But the “Pork” in Porkpine is 
there by highest right, and it is no vulgar error. 
Pork (or what is the same, pig) is in the word 
Porcupine, however the word is spelt: the de- 
parture from the original form is rather in the last 
syllable, “pine”. The elements of the word are 
Lat. Porcus (pig) and spina (thorn) ; hence Porcu- 
pine is “thorny or spinous pig.” The dropping 
of s in the latter half of the word is due to the 
phenomenon elsewhere mentioned in these notes, 
viz., a certain inability to pronounce the combina- 
tion sp. 

172. Cordwainer, as a word, has no relation to 
cords, not even to waxed ends. The word is 
from Cordwain a whimsical spelling of Cordovan 
(old Fr. Cordouan), originally a tanned goatskin 
(now frequently split horsehide leather) brought 
from Cordova, in Spain. The Cordovan or Cord- 
wain leather being of superior quality every cob- 
bler would naturally inscribe on his sign “Cord- 
wain stock”, and so would himself get the name 
Cordwainer. One may see Leghorn written Leg 
Horn, and probably Leg Horn fowls are sup- 
posed to owe the name to some peculiarity of 
their legs. 


120 


PITFALLS IN ENGLISH. 


173. Nerve, when found in old writers, is a 
False Light Till comparatively recent times 
Eng. Nerve, like Lat. Nervus and Gr. Neuros, 
meant, not one of the fibres or minute tubules 
which form the means of communication between 
the brain and the body’s superficies and the 
muscles, but only Sinew, Tendon. Accordingly 
most of the older derivatives of Nerve have only 
or chiefly the latter connotation in literature. 
“His nervous feet” (Wordsworth) means sinewy, 
muscular; “the nervous crossbow”, strung with 
sinew; “nervous style”, vigorous. A hundred and 
fifty years ago the expression “a nervous, timid 
creature” would be regarded as a contradiction 
in terms — equal to “a weak, muscular creature”. 
It is well to bear this in mind when reading works 
more than a century old. 

174. Spittle. When in a petition addressed to 
King James I., one comes upon the phrase “like 
spittle-men, wearing rags”, not improbably that 
enlightened prince’s Counterblast to Tobacco oc- 
curs to the mind at the same time, and a ludicrous 
suspicion that these spittle-men may, perhaps, 
have been users of “the weed”. To harbor such 
opinion would be to be lured by False Lights. 
By Spittle-men is meant inmates of Hospitals 
(spitals) lazarettos, or refuges for the poor. By 
the way, it is curious that the lazaretto or lazar- 


FALSE LIGHTS. 


121 


house or hospital for the poor is to this day, 
a couple of thousand years after Jesus had hon- 
ored Lazarus with his special regard, about the 
same sort of an institution as it may have been 
in Jesus’ time. It hardly does honor to the 
Founder of Christianity that abominable pest 
houses should be called by the name of his friend 
Lazarus — or that under whatever name the ref- 
urges of the unfortunate should be hideous prison' 
pens. 

175. Weeds. The Weed in which the widow 
is attired is assumed to be the same etymological- 
ly as weed, “a plant out of its place”, as though 
the garb of mourning typefied a vesture of weeds. 
But though written and pronounced alike the two 
Weeds have no kinship to each other. In Anglo- 
saxon Woed means garment, clothing. Weed is 
akin to Wind (v., long i), and to Ger. Gewand 
(garment). One of the pre-Jacobean translations 
I of the New Testament (Udal’s) has: Another of 
the Pharissaicall sorte goying in a white wede 
(Luke 19); and Milton has 

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic; i. e., the 
habit of the Friars Preachers. 


INDEX. 


**« The numbers refer to the paragraphs. 


abstruse 50. 
acute 167. 

adjective and adverb 86, 
89. 

adust 162. 
affiliate 40. 
ago 95- 
aliunde 119. 
alloglossic 127. 
all right 66. 
allude 45. 
ambuscade 159. 
anthemia 148. 
animalculum 112. 
any one else’s 105 
apparatus 117. 
approved (of) 94. 
aquarium 112. 
as, that 87. 
asparagus 171. 
asperges 171. 
assassin 157. 
atonement 148. 
attract 17, 


auto-suggestion 157. 
Bacillus hi. 
bacterium hi. 
bad cold 66. 
balance 30. 
beastly drunk 77. 
bifurcate dilemma 56. 
bisbo 130. 
bischof 130. 
bishop 130. 
by brevet 123. 
black art 168. 
blame 140. 
blarney 125. 
blaspheme 140. 
Bluecher 126. 
bombus 165. 
borrowed plumage 78 
bourdon 165. 
bravo 118. 
broil 164. 

bushwhacking 159. 
by all means 98. 
by any chance 99. 

122 


INDEX. 


123 


Calumny 143. 
candelabrum 112. 
challenge 143. 
circumambient 63. 
civility 38. 
clergy 145. 
clerk 145. 
cloture 122. 
congress ioi. 
conscience, grammatical 
104. 

consensus 24. 
conservatine 13. 
contagion 156. 
cordwainer 172. 
co-respondent 21 . 
coup de soleil 12 1. 
cover (v.) 57. 
cure, curate 162. 
cyclopedia 22. 

Datum 1 12. 
dead letter 32. 
deal 150. 
dear cost 80. 
deathly sick 66. 
decimate 152. 
deprecate, depreciate 30. 
diatribe 61. 
dilemma 56. 
dilettante 11S. 
disembody 106. 
do away 94. 


domestic 10. 
done 87. 
dunce 131. 

Economy 139. 
ecstasy 141. 
edge 167. 
egg (v.) 167. 
embezzle 132. 
embroil 164. 
emerald 144. 
emery 144. 
empiric 65. 
encyclopedia 22. 
enough 97. 
entail 20. 
episcopus 130. 
equally as 68. 
ethics 146. 
eveque 130. 
every on (plur.) 91. 
every other 79. 
every time 66. 
excelsior 23. 
excepto probat regulam 
81. 

exercitus 117. 
expire 44. 
explode 161. 
extra 60. 

eyes, room in the 76. 
Faure 126. 

feathering the nest 78 


124 


INDEX. 


flippant 54. 
formula 114. 
fruition 59. 


in petto 121. 

in the event that 09. 

ironworks (sing.) 90. 


Getting religion 74. 
Gillespie 130. 
given leave 108. 
going on 10 yrs. 96. 
going to go 68. 
go to work 69. 
grammar 100. 

Grouchy 126. 

Habeas corpus 119. 
handicap 41. 
hashish 157. 
here where there is no. 
heterodox 136. 
heterophemy 37. 
hisher 91. 
host 55. 

humble bee 165. 
hummel 165. 
humoristic English 43. 
hypothesis 35. 
hypothecate ib. 

Identify 27. 
idiot 133. 
ignoramus 115. 
ignorantism 12. 
imbecile 132. 
incognito 118. 
infringe 94. 

in partibus infidelium 
123. 


Just as good 66. 

Kleptomania 37. 

Laity 145. 

La Rochelle 125. 
lazaretto 174. 
learn, teach 107. 
leech 162. 

Leg Horn 172. 
lie, lay 107. 

Magnate 29. 
make up mind 69. 
mandamus 13. 
menschenhass Q. 
miasma 114. 
miscreant 136. 
misere 155. 

M. (monsieur), Mine., 
128. 

moral 146. 

mynheer, myne vrou w 
128. 

Nag 169. 
near 93. 

necromancy 168. 
nee 121. 
nerve 173. 
nice 66. 

nigromancv 168. 
no end of trouble 96. 


INDEX. 


125 


nonplus 64. 
no one (plur.) 91. 
Obisbo 130. 
obtain 138. 
omnibus 115. 
oneing 148. 
only 84. 

only too willing 72. 
or, nor 67. 
orders 145. 
orthodox 136. 

Particle 151. 
particularly and peculiar- 

ly 43- 

phalanx 28. 
phenomenon 14. 
place 46, 49. 
plasma 114. 
pleasant 48. 
polite 37. 

political economy 139. 
political policy 62. 
porcupine 171. 
position 49. 
possessive case 92. 
posted 31. 
president 102. 
prestige 26; prestidigita- 
tion ib. 
privilige 103. 
punctuation 109. 

Queen 102. 
quick 135. 


Radius 113. 
rase, raze 158. 
razor 158. 
real good 66. 
reeking 52. 
refer 45. 
religio 148. 
renegade 137. 
res publica 139. 
rhinoceros 113. 
Rothschild 126. 
royal navy 102. 

Sacer 148. 
scandal 142. 
scholastics 131. 
scruple 154. 
secure 34. 

self-suggestion 157. 
share 19. 
singular 153 
sitten 146. 
slander 142 
sleuth 47. 
sodden 51. 
solid 66. 
squirrel 147. 
standing 25. 
starve 155. 
stratum 112. 
Sadi-Camot 126. 
scintilla 163. 
set, sit 107. 
simony 161. 


INDEX. 


sparrowgrass 171. 
spittle-men 174. 
spoonful 104. 
stigma 1 14. 

Tantalize 53. 
teem 15. 
ten ft. water 90. 
terrifically 75. 
that depends 71. 
tinsel 163. 
to 68, 88. 
tonsure 145. 
transpire 44. 
trustees ex maleficio 

Unscrupulous 154. 
urbane 38. 

Venerable 18. 


mn 11324 


verse 134. 
vescovo 134. 
vim 53. 
virtuoso 1 18. 
vivid 33. 
viscus 1 13. 

Wage 16. 
wallow 149. 
waltz 149. 
wedlock 170. 
weeds 175. 
welter 149. 
went 87. 
we was 87. 
who, whom 85. 
wiseacre 166. 
wreak 39. 







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